Hervé Cuviliez started his career in Paris by creating his first interactive agency and sold it to DDB Worldwide (Omnicom group) in 1999. Since then he has been in charge of all the digital activities of DDB in France (1,500 employees). Since 2008, Hervé is the co-founder and CEO of Diwanee, a digital media company which has built one of the largest female audiences in the Middle East. He is French and is the Middle East Ambassador for the Webby Awards.

Of Beninese origin, Bertin Nahum was born in 1969 in Senegal and grew up in France. It is during his studies at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA Lyon, France) that he affirms his vocation: “at the end of my studies, I was involved in the development of a software that could automatically read head injuries from scanners. This feeling of purpose inspired me to devote my career to patients, but on the technicians’ side, through the development of robots that would support surgeons during their procedures.” Following his engineering degree, he moves on to Coventry University (England), graduating with a Master of Science, before starting his career. During ten years he works for leading companies specialized in surgical robotics such as Computer Motion Inc. (cardiac surgery, urology, etc.), Integrated Surgical System Inc. (orthopedic surgery), and IMMI SA (neurosurgery). Capitalizing on his experience, he decides to launch his own initiative, and in 2002, he sets up his own company specialized in surgical robotics: Medtech.

As an Internet entrepreneur and investor, Fabrice has successfully operated and invested in businesses in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. In March 2006, Fabrice co-founded OLX, Inc. with business partner Alec Oxenford, in the hopes of building the largest free local classified site in the world. Until December 2012, as co-CEO, Fabrice drove the company’s business development, investor relations, M&A and product development efforts. OLX now has over 300 employees and is present in over 90 countries and 50 languages with over 150 million unique visitors per month. Fabrice is also a prolific angel investor with over 100 active investments in various companies including Viajanet, Peopleperhour, Brightroll, and many others. Prior to OLX, Fabrice was the founder and CEO of Zingy Inc., which he built into one of the largest wireless media companies in the Americas while successfully closing deals with some of the top wireless providers in the world. Within four years, Fabrice successfully grew the business to $200 million in content sales before selling the business in 2004 for $80 million. In 1998, Fabrice co-founded and was CEO of Aucland S.A., one of the top three auction sites in Europe. Before that Fabrice worked as a business consultant for McKinsey & Company. Fabrice graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton University in 1996 and was awarded the Halbert White prize, given to the most distinguished economics student, as well as The Wolfe Balleisen memorial prize, awarded for best thesis.

Marie Ekeland, a partner at Elaia Partners, is currently a member of the board of directors of Criteo, Scoop.it, Seven Academy, Teads, Wyplay and Ykone. She began her career in 1997 at the New York investment bank JP Morgan, where she participated in the development of a front-office worldwide application. She then moved to Paris, and managed a team to support that global application. In 2000, Marie joined CPR Private Equity and has been acting as a Venture Capitalist since, first within the Credit Agricole Group, and since 2005 at Elaia Partners. Since June 2012, Marie is also the co-founder and co-President of France Digitale, the joint association of start-ups and VCs for French digital entrepreneurship. She is also Member of the Conseil National du Numérique. Marie has an engineering degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Dauphine, Paris, and holds a master's degree in economics from the Paris School of Economics.

Matt Turck, a Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, invests across a broad range of enterprise and consumer start-ups, with a particular predilection for Big Data-driven products and hardware/software ventures. Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software start-up that was acquired by Oracle. Matt organizes two large monthly tech community events, Data Driven NYC (which focuses on data-driven start-ups and Big Data) and Hardwired NYC (which focuses on the Internet of Things, 3D printing and wearable computing). Matt graduated from Sciences Po Paris and holds a master of laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School.

An engineer with a strong background in Micro-electronics and Computer Science, Frederic is now an Internet entrepreneur and investor in tech-savvy start-ups. Over the past 13 years, he has been co-founder and CxO at Codanova (Hardware Devices for musicians and VJs), OverBlog (#1 European blogging platform), Nomao (SoLoMo search engine), Ebuzzing (Leading Video Ads Platform). He's impassioned by the way that connecting billions of people through the internet is changing our world, the development of humanity and the spread of knowledge. He now lives in NYC where he is founder & CEO of Secret Media Inc., an AdTech company which helps publishers to monetize people who use Ad Blockers.

Alex Iskold is the Managing Director of Techstars in New York City. Previously Alex was Founder/CEO of GetGlue (acquired by i.tv), Founder/CEO of Information Laboratory (acquired by IBM), and Chief Architect of DataSynapse (acquired by TIBCO). Alex created GetGlue, the leading social TV network, backed by Union Square Ventures, RRE Ventures, TimeWarner Investments and Rho Ventures. GetGlue has been named breakout start-up of 2011 by Mashable and Top 10 Video Innovator by Fast Company. In 2012 The Hollywood Reporter named Alex among top 50 digital power players. Alex’s first start-up, Information Laboratory, created a tool that helped software architects find problems in their code. IBM acquired the company in 2003, and much of Alex’s work made its way into widely used IBM Rational Developer and Architect products. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Alex also contributed hundreds of articles to ReadWriteWeb, and taught an award-winning undergraduate software engineering class at NYU. An engineer by training, Alex has deep passion and appreciation for start-ups, digital products and elegant code. He likes running, yoga, complex systems, Murakami books and red wine. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all together.

Dr. Howard Morgan is co-founder/partner in First Round Capital, a seed stage venture capital firm. He has more than 30 years of experience with more than two hundred high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. He serves on the boards of Idealab, Fab.com, GumGum, DogVacay and other companies. Howard was a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Caltech. He is a Trustee of Cold Spring Harbor Labs and Math For America, and is a respected author. He received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1997. He holds a PhD in operations research from Cornell University (1968) and a BS from the CCNY (1965).

Guillaume has started his career in digital in 1996. For 15 years, he has worked at leading digital agencies such as Nurun and Razorfish (now part of the Publicis Group) to advise high-profile brands on their digital strategies. His international client roster includes brands like McDonald’s, Nike, L’Oréal, Danone, Nissan, Sanofi and PlayStation. In 2010, Guillaume moved abroad with his wife and two kids to work as a Client Partner at Razorfish San Francisco to work with Sony Electronics, Intel and Walt Disney Studios. Moving back to France in September 2011, Guillaume joined DDB (part of the Omnicom Group) to develop and manage Digital University, its digital evangelization and training unit. As CEO of Digital University, Guillaume and his team have designed and delivered 650+ hours of bespoke programs for 1,700+ people from 21 nationalities in 10 countries for McDonald’s, Bouygues Telecom, Manpower, Chanel, LVMH and BNP Paribas. In addition to his various duties, Guillaume has also been a Guest Speaker at CELSA (the Communication School from the University of Paris Sorbonne), a Senior Lecturer at the “Institut d’Etudes Politiques” of Paris (Sciences Po Paris) and a Guest Lecturer at the General Management Program of CEDEP. Since November 2013, Guillaume is Director of AXA Lab, a digital innovation sourcing unit located in San Francisco, which aims at connecting AXA with Silicon Valley’s Tech players, detect latest trends, develop the Group’s digital culture and initiate pilot projects. He is also a Guest lecturer at IMD AXA Digital Leaders program.

Paris-born, serial web entrepreneur Mathieu Nouzareth is CEO of FreshPlanet, the New York-based developer of the highly-popular social mobile game SongPop, the turn-by-turn, simulated real-time play game for music lovers that has built a global following of over 80 million players since its launch in June 2012. Mathieu Nouzareth began his career in 1995 at 23 by co-founding WebConcept, one of France’s first e-business consulting firms. WebConcept was sold to Sweden’s IconMedialab in 1999, and remains one of the largest Internet consultancy companies in the world. From 1999 to 2001, Mathieu acted as CEO of IconMedialab France. In 2001, Mathieu and his brother Romain started Boonty.com, a digital game distribution company. Operating in over 30 countries with a staff of 180, the company was sold to Nexway (France) in 2008 and is currently one of the world’s leading game distribution platforms. In 2006, the Nouzareth brothers founded Is Cool Entertainment, the social casual game publisher which is now listed on the NYSE-Alternext market (ALIS) and has become one of Europe’s largest Facebook game developers. In 2009, Mathieu moved to New York where he and Romain founded the game company FreshPlanet, where Mathieu currently acts as CEO. Mathieu is a graduate of the Grenoble School of Management and holds an MBA from Pace University in New York. He is a frequent panelist at tech conferences such as LeWeb Paris, CES Las Vegas, GDC or CrunchUp.

Roxanne Varza currently leads Microsoft’s start-up activities in France, running both Bizspark and Microsoft Ventures programs. In April 2013, Business Insider listed her as one of the top 30 women under 30 in tech. Prior to Microsoft, she worked for several European start-ups and was also the Editor of TechCrunch France. She also co-founded the French and British chapters of Girls in Tech and is the co-organizer of the Failcon Paris conference. More recently, she co-founded Tech.eu, a European tech publication. Prior to TechCrunch, Roxanne worked for the French government’s foreign direct investment agency in San Francisco helping fast-growing start-ups develop their activities in France. She has spoken, moderated, mentored and judged numerous start-up events and programs throughout Europe and also helps European start-ups with content and communications. She has also contributed to other publications, including The Telegraph, The Kernel, Betakit and Business Insider. Roxanne is trilingual, an epilepsy advocate, and holds degrees from UCLA, Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.

Morgan Hermand-Waiche is the founder and CEO of Adore Me, an e-commerce site offering design-crafted and self-branded intimate apparel at affordable prices. Morgan sought to differentiate Adore Me from other intimates' brands by making lingerie more affordable for every women - of any size and age. With a family history dating back to the garment industry in France, Morgan’s passion and entrepreneurial foundation can be attributed to his family and his keen interest in the marketplace. Morgan had the opportunity to learn from multiple hands on e-business experiences at a young age and contributed towards building successful fashion retail companies. Prior to Adore Me, Morgan was a fellow of serial internet entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda, working with him on various ventures. Morgan also worked at McKinsey & Company for three years, where he was the youngest consultant to develop the private equity practice overseas in Asia, focusing on tech companies. Morgan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master of Science from École des Mines (i.e. French MIT equivalent). He has been featured on Fox Business amongst other business publications and trades. He lives in New York City, near the Adore Me HQ, right in the heart of the fashion district.

Gilles Babinet (46) is an entrepreneur. He has founded and co-founded numerous companies since the age of 23 in diverse areas such as consultancy (Absolut), mobile music (Musiwave), co-creation (Eyeka), social music gaming (Mxp4), online marketing (Digibonus), music publishing (Sawnd) and marketing dashboard (CaptainDash). From April 2011 to April 2012, Gilles has also served as the fist Chairman of the Conseil National du Numérique (National Digital Council) in France. Since 2012, he has been appointed Digital Champion for France and as such, he represents France at the European Council level.

Secretary of State for Froeign Trade, Tourism and French Nationals Abroad, Fleur Pellerin was born in Seoul (South Korea) in 1973. Adopted at the age of 6 months by a French family, she was raised near Paris, first in Montreuil, then Versailles. Fleur Pellerin started her career as a civil servant after attending the National School of Administration (ENA). After graduating, she became a judicial officer at the Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes). In this capacity, she conducted financial and legislative audits of public institutions and policies in the fields of education, culture, research and media. In addition to her duties at the Court of Auditors, she served in Iraq, New York and Geneva as an external auditor to the United Nations between 2001 and 2007. Also in 2007, she was appointed rapporteur to the Committee on Professional Conduct in the Civil State Service. After six years in the public sector, Fleur Pellerin joined in 2008 the Paris-based communications consulting firm Tilder for two years as associate director, before returning to the Court of Auditors. In 2011, she joined the presidential campaign of François Hollande, where she was in charge of digital economy and society issues. Following the election, she was named in May 2012 Minister Delegate with responsibility for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Innovation and the Digital Economy. Fleur Pellerin has also been very active in several non-profit organizations; she was President of the 21st Century Club, a network of successful leaders working to promote social diversity and equality in France, from 2010 to 2012. Fleur Pellerin is a graduate of both ESSEC business school and Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), where she studied after being awarded both the French (Baccalaureat) and German (Abitur) high school final exams.

In 2005, Jean-Baptiste Rudelle co-founded Criteo, a company specialized in online targeted advertising. In a few years, Criteo has become a major actor of digital marketing in Europe, Asia and the USA. A graduate from Supélec (French Superior Engineering School for Energy), Jean-Baptiste started his career as an engineer at Philips and Lucent before moving on to strategy consulting at Roland Berger & Partners. He then became a serial entrepreneur in telecommunications and the Internet. In 1995, Jean-Baptiste founded a company specialized in call-backs. In 1999, he founded Kiwee, the French pioneer for mobile ringtone downloads. In 2004, the company was acquired by American Greeting Interactive, where Jean-Baptiste has been administrator until 2006. Since 2008, Jean-Baptiste has been focusing on the international development of Criteo.

Alexandre Mars is a serial entrepreneur and a visionary in new technologies and digital communication. Over the last 15 years, he has successfully launched and sold several companies in Europe and the US within various business sectors including venture capital, internet, mobile, social media and advertising. His last two start-ups, Phonevalley (the world's largest mobile agency) and ScrOOn (a social media management system) were recently sold respectively to Publicis Omnicom Group and Blackberry. In 2007, Alexandre seized upon another emerging communications opportunity: social media. Recognizing the oncoming social revolution, Alexandre launched ScrOOn, a proprietary social media deployment and management platform. ScrOOn was eventually tapped by Blackberry in 2013 to be used as the underlying technology that monetized its popular BBM product. Regularly quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, Alexandre is sought after to share his mobile/digital vision at industry events (MIT, CES, Advertising Week, OMMA, Digi:Day, AdTech, GSMA Mobile World Congress, New York Mobile Media Summit, European Media Leaders). Alexandre’s spirit for and proficiency at entrepreneurship blossomed early. At the age of 20 Alexandre founded one of the very first web agencies in Europe while continuing his studies at HEC Business School and Paris Dauphine University. At 25, he embarked on a new venture creating his own Internet investment fund and achieved the distinction of being one of the youngest players ever to participate in international venture capital. In 2001, Alexandre created a mobile marketing firm, Phonevalley, designed to pioneer the emerging mobile marketing industry. Within just a few years, he propelled Phonevalley to become the largest mobile marketing agency in Europe. In 2007, Publicis Groupe, looking to get an early jump on the emerging demand for mobile media, acquired Phonevalley and established the firm as its official worldwide Mobile Marketing and Advertising entity. With this distinction, Mars was appointed “Head of Mobile” at Publicis Groupe, thereby positioning the world's third largest media conglomerate at the forefront of the mobile communications era. Alexandre currently lives in New York with his wife and three children. An avid sports enthusiast, he spent the summers of his childhood in the US where he developed his affinity for the San Francisco 49ers, the NY Jets and the Yankees. He engages in mixed martial arts and ran both the Paris and the New York marathons.

Anne-Laure Sellier is an Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris. Anne-Laure completed her initial training in business at the HEC School of Management (France), followed by a public administration Master at the Bocconi University (Italy), and an MBA from Warwick University (England). She then worked in the pharmaceutical industry, before undertaking a PhD in management at INSEAD (France). Prior to joining HEC Paris, Anne-Laure was a faculty member at the London Business School in England, and at the Stern Business School of New York University, in the USA. Her research interests are in the area influences of time perception on decision-making, creativity, self-regulation, self-control, consumer happiness, and generally in how emotions and cognition interact in judgment and decision-making. Anne-Laure has been published in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Céline Lazorthes is the founder and CEO of the Leetchi group, which includes Leetchi.com, Europe’s leading start-up for group payments and group gifts and the Payment API Mangopay dedicated to marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms. In 2014, Leetchi.com counts more than 1,000,000 clients worldwide and Mangopay has collected more than 60 million euros. Céline Lazorthes is managing a team of 26, based in Leetchi’s Parisian headquarters and in Luxembourg. After her master’s degree in IT Project Management, she obtained a second master’s degree from HEC Paris in Digital Business. That’s also when the idea behind Leetchi.com was born: after having encountered problems while collecting money from her fellow students, she decided to found a web-based service that would make everybody’s life a bit easier. With Leetchi.com, collecting money from a group of people becomes easy as pie, for example for a group gift for a wedding or a birthday, for a trip with friends, a party, etc. Céline Lazorthes is a very dynamic person and always does things at 100%. She is very engaged in the French start-up scene and is a founding member of the organization France Digitale. In 2010 and 2011, she was part of the French delegation to the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Toronto and Nice. Céline Lazorthes frequently participates in conferences both in France and abroad including the Noah Conference in London, Next in Berlin, EBE in Seville. Leetchi.com was named Best French Start-up 2013 by Wired Europe. Originally from the south of France, Céline Lazorthes remains loyal to the region’s conviviality and leads her company in a very human way.

Cyril Zimmermann is a digital entrepreneur and investor born in 1971. He is Chairman of Hi-media, the company he founded in 1996. Specialized in interactive media since 1998, Hi-media has diversified along with the evolution of Internet's economic models. Within fifteen years, Hi-media has successfully developed a unique expertise through its constantly seeking excellence and pro-activity. Hi-media employs around 500 people and reaches over 200 million euros turnover. The economic model of Hi-media lays on monetizing the Internet audience and is based on two revenue sources: online advertising and its advertising network (adexchange, video, mobile, special operations) and online payments with HiPay. Hi-media is also part of the major public Internet companies in France, both independant and present throughout Europe (Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and United-Kingdom), the USA and Brazil. Cyril Zimmermann also founded the motorcycle-taxi compagny HiCab. He is a board member of the digital music distibutor Believe SA and takes part in live show productions. He graduated from the IEP and ESCP. He holds a History degree from the Paris University Panthéon Sorbonne.

Stephan Dietrich is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the high tech industry and an exceptional track record growing start-ups from the ground up, all the way to successful exits. Founder of Neolane in 2001, President North America, Stephan was responsible for driving Neolane’s corporate vision, international business development and its high growth in North America. In 2013, with revenues in excess of $60M and 400 employees, Neolane was acquired by Adobe Systems for $600M. Prior to Neolane, Stephan was Founder and CEO of CubicSoft and also co-founder and VP of AGDS, acquired by Peregrine Systems, now HP. Stephan is a recognized thought leader and a Digital Marketing expert. He is regularly interviewed in high-level publications and has spoken at several major worldwide marketing events. Stephan holds a Master of Science degree from École Centrale de Paris and earned his Master in Business Administration from the College des Ingenieurs.

Holder of a Doctorate in Economical Sciences from Paris I - La Sorbonne University, Morald Chibout has carved himself an enviable position and a strong reputation in the relentless world of business. In 1993, he enters the General Public Branch at France Télécom as Product Manager, then Senior Product Manager. In 1996 he is appointed Head of Sales and Development at France Télécom Ile-de-France. Appointed Head of Marketing and Communication Europe at Groupe Wanadoo, for 4 years, he builds the “products and communication” strategy and develops the range of plans launched by the provider since 1998. In 2002, he joins T-Online as Head of Sales and Marketing, with a set goal to strengthen the position of Club-Internet in France and to develop its business model. From 2004 to 2011, he joins EDF as General Public Marketing Director. Since September 2011, he is the CEO of Autolib’, the first big scale eco-friendly car-sharing service of electrical cars in the world. He is in charge of the launch and the development of Autolib’ in the Paris area alongside Mister Vincent Bolloré. Autolib’ has been ranked by the Financial Times as one of the top 10 most important projects for the future of the auto industry. He is a board member of the 21st Century Club, a network of successful leaders working to promote social diversity and equality in France. He is also a member of the Advertisers Club and of the Managing Directors of France Club. He is the author of a bestselling book “Marketing explained to my mother, the art of product positioning” (Eyrolles Editions). He is elected “Marketing Man” of the year in 2008. Morald Chibout is made Chevalier of the Order of Merit in 2003 (contingent of the Prime Minister), and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 2008 (under the Presidential Reserve).

After graduating from École Polytechnique, Jean-David Chamboredon started his career with thirteen years at Cap Gemini and launched the Cap Gemini Telemedia Lab in Silicon Valley in 1997. In 1999, he switched to Capital Investment, first as CTO of Europatweb and then as Partner at Viventures. From 2003 to 2009, he was the first French Partner in the Venture & TMT Activity at 3i Group plc. Then he co-founded Isai, “the” Internet entrepreneurs' fund, along with Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux, Stéphane Treppoz, Ouriel Ohayon and Christophe Raynaud. Among others, he invested in SeLoger.com (IPO Euronext), Screentonic (sold to Microsoft), Okyz (sold to Adobe), Highdeal (sold to SAP), and Priceminister (sold to Rakuten).

Dominique Ansel is the chef and owner of Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City. Since its opening in November 2011, the chef’s eponymous bakery was named Time Out New York’s “Best Bakery of 2012” and is also Zagat 2013’s highest ranked bakery. In 2009, Dessert Professional magazine named Dominique one of the "Top 10 Pastry Chefs in the United States". In 2013, he was nominated as a James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef. And in May of 2013, he invented the Cronut®, a croissant-doughnut hybrid that became the most virally popular pastry of its time. With his unstoppable creativity, the New York Post proclaimed him the “Willy Wonka of NYC”, Food & Wine called him the “culinary Van Gogh” of our times, and he was voted one of Business Insider’s Most Innovative Persons in 2013.

Self-educated, Mickael Froger started his career in the Internet sector by joining M6 group in 1999, taking part in the development of the first web portals in France. After spending several years in large groups such as Lagardère – with Europe 2 and RFM and then LeGuide.com – and 2xMoinsCher/3 Suisses, Mickael has co-founded Lengow in July 2009 with Jérémie Peiro. Lengow edits a SaaS solution that helps e-merchants index, optimize and manage all of their online product catalogues. Lengow helps them sell their products on price comparison websites, marketplaces as well as affiliate networks, retargeting, social networks and sponsored links. Today, the company employs more than 50 people and covers 18 countries.

Co-founder of the Rude Baguette, Liam Boogar is originally from the Silicon Valley. Since his move to Paris in 2010, Liam has become a thought leader on the European Start-up Ecosystem, being interviewed in online, TV, and radio all over the world. He has spoken at Europe’s top technology events, and animates the Paris start-up scene through the Rude Baguette blog and events.

Marc Rougier is a repeat entrepreneur of the digital economy. Currently co-founder and president of Scoop.it, the leading publishing-by-curation platform for professionals and businesses, he specializes in early stage, Intellectual Property-strong ventures with international potential. He has co-founded 4 start-ups (including Meiosys, a software vendor in the virtualization space, acquired by IBM in 2005) and has experienced the start-up scene in Asia, Europe and North America. He is actively involved in promoting entrepreneurship in the digital economy as a mentor, business angel and member of several associations including France Digitale and the TIC Valley or as a TEDx speaker.

Jean-David Blanc started his career in e-business as of a young age. At the age of 13, he designed video games for the Apple II and published articles in computer publications. At 15, he and Jean-Marc Royer created "Futura,” a bulletin board system. Blanc founded his first IT services company, Crystal Technologies, and introduced the first electronic information service supported on Minitel for the Marlboro Racing Service the following year. At 17, he established his first company, Concerto Telematique, which provided interactive Minitel and phone services to brands such as Marlboro, Nissan, Elf and Coca-Cola. At the age of 22, he has the idea of AlloCiné, a telephone and web-based film ticketing service, and launches the company with Patick Holzman in 1993. After 10 years of developing AlloCiné as its CEO, Blanc sold the company to Vivendi Universal in 2001. After AlloCiné, Blanc has become an active business angel, consultant and strategic advisor for groups and venture funds related to the Internet and new technologies in Europe and the US. He has invested in start-ups such as Appsfire, Square Inc., TheCools, Meetic, and Véoprint. In addition, he mentors and sponsors the start-up program at the SUPdeWEB school in Paris.

A graduate from EHESS and from Paris University La Sorbonne, Simon Istolainen is the co-founder and former General Director of the participative label MyMajorCompany. Since 2007, the label has produced several dozens of artists, including Grégoire (1.5M albums sold), Joyce Jonathan, Irma… He is also the founder of PeopleForCinema, the MyMajorCompany for cinema, and an investor in Dealissime (sold to Living Social), Vinobest (sold to Lot18.fr) and Wizee (sold to the Change group). Simon Istolainen has produced Les Gamins in 2013 with Ilan Goldman, and pursues today a career as a producer within ADAMA by supporting young talents such as Max Boublil or Kheiron, and by developing international projects such as HHhH (2010 Goncourt Prize for first novel) with John Hillcoat (The Road, Lawless).

Ed is a venture lawyer and chairs the Tech Group at Lowenstein Sandler LLP, where he’s worked for more than 20 years. Ed has represented hundreds of start-ups, growth companies and venture funds. He has angel invested in more than 45 companies and invested as an LP in more than a dozen families of venture funds. Ed has taught VC at Columbia Business School for 8 years, has published 60+ columns on venture/tech (and sometimes wine or music) on the Accelerators page of the WSJ and founded FirstGrowthVC & VentureCrush.

Jérôme Lecat is a serial entrepreneur and business angel with 20 years of internet start-up experience. In 2009 he founded Scality, a leader in Software-Defined Storage with Giorgio Regni. From 2003 to 2010, Jérôme led Bizanga, the leading email MTA software infrastructure for service providers, which he founded with Olivier Lemarié, Marc Sheldon and Giorgio Regni. Bizanga achieved major market penetration worldwide with customers such as Comcast, Cox Communications, Telefonica and United Internet (1&1). Bizanga was successfully sold to Cloudmark in February 2010. In 2001, Jérôme became Chairman of the Board of Data Center Technology (DCT), a Belgium-based start-up which developed a unique Content Addressable Storage (CAS) technology, especially for the backup market. After signing over 70 customers, DCT was sold to Veritas in 2005 with significant profit for its investors. In 1994, together with Olivier Dauchot and Olivier Lemarié, Jérôme founded Internet-Way, the fourth ISP for enterprises to open in France. As CEO, he built the company from a garage start-up to the second largest ISP in France. In 1997, after the company had reached profitability, he sold the company to UUNET, where he served as vice president of products for EMEA. Jérôme has also been active as a business angel and Board member in several leading technology companies, including Vision Objects, the world leader in handwriting recognition, which was sold to DoubleDay in 2009. Jérôme holds an engineering degree from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, and a research master’s degree in Cognitive Science from Université Paris VII. Jérôme also completed the AMD program at INSEAD. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Anna, herself an entrepreneur, and sons Nathan and Alexandre. In 2010, Jérôme and Anna also founded a non-profit organization, the Sugar Foundation, devoted to supporting children and teenagers become passionate and balanced adults.

Nick Taranto was born in New York City. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Plated.com. Nick received his BA at Dartmouth and then moved to Java, Indonesia on a Fulbright grant, where he taught English and started a microfinance group. After Indonesia, he received his MPA and MBA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School. He then commissioned as an infantry officer in the US Marine Corps. After leaving active duty, he worked at Goldman Sachs on a private wealth team managing over $3.5 billion in assets, while serving in the Marine Corps Reserves. In June of 2012, a Harvard Business School buddy and Nick co-founded Plated.com -- we are on a mission to use tech and data-driven operations to fix the broken American food supply chain. Over the last year, Plated has raised over $7 million in venture capital and now ships to over 90% of the United States. Nick is married, a big fan of peaty whiskey, and contributes regularly to Forbes and the Huffington Post.

Renaud Visage is the founding technical architect and CTO of leading online event management company Eventbrite. With engineering degrees from Cornell University and École Centrale de Lyon (France), Renaud started his career as an environmental consultant. Fascinated by the Internet, Renaud joined, as the Director of Engineering, Internet photo-sharing pioneer, Zing Networks which was funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and later acquired by Sony ImageStation. In 2006, he joined forces with Kevin & Julia Hartz to found Eventbrite. Eventbrite enables people all over the world to plan, promote, and sell out any event. With funding from Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, and Tenaya Capital, Eventbrite has been widely successful and recently announced that it had sold more than $1 billion of tickets to date.

After graduating from HEC Paris and specializing at Telecom Paris, Antoine began his career at Google France. At the end of 2009, he co-founds fifty-five, an agency specialized in digital marketing and data management – from the ad purchase to the customer experience roadmap. Five years of intensive development have allowed the company to reach a critical size at the end of 2013: 80 collaborators and an international presence. As an expert in e-business strategies, he has published two books at Dunod, one in 2010 (L’Affiliation) and another in 2013 (Webanalyse). Antoine has lead missions for large companies as well as for pure players in various sectors such as the automotive industry, the media, banking and insurance, telecommunications or mass distribution. In 2014, he has been named Digital Director at AXA France. His mission: to accompany the digital ambition of the company, by ensuring an effective and collective implementation of its digital transformation.

An engineer with a strong background in Micro-electronics and Computer Science, Frederic is now an Internet entrepreneur and investor in tech-savvy start-ups. Over the past 13 years, he has been co-founder and CxO at Codanova (Hardware Devices for musicians and VJs), OverBlog (#1 European blogging platform), Nomao (SoLoMo search engine), Ebuzzing (Leading Video Ads Platform). He's impassioned by the way that connecting billions of people through the internet is changing our world, the development of humanity and the spread of knowledge. He now lives in NYC where he is founder & CEO of Secret Media Inc., an AdTech company which helps publishers to monetize people who use Ad Blockers.

Matt Turck, a Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, invests across a broad range of enterprise and consumer start-ups, with a particular predilection for Big Data-driven products and hardware/software ventures. Prior to FirstMark, he was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures, the investment and incubation arm of Bloomberg LP, which he helped start. Previously, Matt was the co-founder of TripleHop Technologies, a venture-backed enterprise search software start-up that was acquired by Oracle. Matt organizes two large monthly tech community events, Data Driven NYC (which focuses on data-driven start-ups and Big Data) and Hardwired NYC (which focuses on the Internet of Things, 3D printing and wearable computing). Matt graduated from Sciences Po Paris and holds a master of laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School.

Jamie Wong is the founder & CEO of the leading experience travel company Vayable.com, a community connecting travelers to local insiders who design, book and host unique experiences. Vayable boasts more than 5,000 vetted insiders in more than 600 destinations. As a thought leader and entrepreneur, Jamie is leading the charge in experience travel, which rethinks how we’ve been accustomed to travel. Her service enables you to do anything from fishing with a Fijian king to learning to fly to training to be a ninja. She works in collaboration with top executives, editors and consultants in the travel space and focused on disrupting the industry through technology and community. She has traveled to more than 40 countries. Jamie has appeared on major networks such as CBS and BBC. She recently became a regular contributor to Huffington Post’s travel section. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and formerly worked as a writer and producer at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Michael Moore and PBS Frontline.

Marcello Conviti speaks five languages, and he has an MBA from the University of Turin and a PhD in IT technologies from the University of Pisa. Marcello Conviti began his career in Italy with IBM in 1978. After a few years working for renowned Italian companies, including Fiat, he focused on European positions within the life sciences industry. For 12 years he held several strategic positions at Sorin Biomedica, an Italian company that designs cardiac medical devices. Before joining Carmat, Marcello Conviti held several senior international positions with Edwards Lifesciences during a period of 17 years (most recently Senior Vice President for Strategy and New Business Development). Edwards Lifesciences is the world leader in heart valves, including its flagship product, the Edwards-Carpentier heart valve, which revolutionized cardiac surgery. Marcello Conviti is also a member of the Board of Directors at Eucomed, the European confederation of associations of manufacturers of medical devices.

Charles Christory is a young French entrepreneur passionate about new technologies. After a Master degree in engineering and business at Iteem (Lille, France), a MSc in Project Management & Programs at SKEMA Business School (Lille, France), and many international experiences, Charles created at 22 his first company, Adictiz. Adictiz is a French company created in 2009 by Charles Christory which develops and publishes social games on mobile and on the web. With successful brands such as “Space Dog”, “Stupid Pigeon” or "Laboratz", which attract nearly 3.5 million monthly active players, Adictiz is recognized as an expert in mobile and social gaming. Located in EuraTechnologies, Lille’s cluster dedicated to new technologies, Adictiz has also created in 2011 the entity Adictiz Studio specialized in creating social games tailored for brands. Adictiz Studio was recently selected by Facebook as PMD (Preferred Marketing Developer) and has worked with more than 400 brands.

After graduating as an engineer from ENSIMAG (Grenoble Polytechnique group), Ludovic Le Moan started his career with technical and sales positions before becoming VP of COFRAMI Group (1,500 employees). He then moved on to creating Anyware Technologies, the company specialized in object data processing software (M2M), which was acquired by Wavecom. He is also the founder of Goojet, which became Scoop.it, the leading curation platform on the Internet, before becoming CEO of SIGFOX in December 2010 after a 2 million euro funding round. Ludovic Le Moan is a serial entrepreneur who takes on his free time to provide advice to many business executives and companies, some of which are part of his TIC Valley initiative. He has contributed to the success of dozens of French and international companies.

Anthony Layser is the Head of US Content Development for Dailymotion — the second most trafficked video sharing site and the 31st most visited web site in the world. Prior to Dailymotion, Anthony produced videos for AOL/Huffington Post, ranging from news and lifestyle to fashion and comedy, including the award-winning series, “You’ve Got."

Michael has served as President of AppNexus since joining the company in September 2009. He oversees the company's global commercial functions, including Sales, Client Services and Marketing. Prior to joining AppNexus, Michael founded and served as VP and General Manager of Google's DoubleClick Ad Exchange. During his tenure at Google/DoubleClick, he held executive positions including VP of Strategic Accounts, where he spearheaded the company's landmark ad technology partnership with AOL. Michael joined DoubleClick in 2001 as part of the company's acquisition of FloNetwork, an email marketing ASP. Michael holds a BA from McGill University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Dr. Howard Morgan is co-founder/partner in First Round Capital, a seed stage venture capital firm. He has more than 30 years of experience with more than two hundred high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. He serves on the boards of Idealab, Fab.com, GumGum, DogVacay and other companies. Howard was a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Caltech. He is a Trustee of Cold Spring Harbor Labs and Math For America, and is a respected author. He received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1997. He holds a PhD in operations research from Cornell University (1968) and a BS from the CCNY (1965).

As Analyst at the AXA Lab in San Francisco, Thibaut connects AXA to the Tech players from the Silicon Valley to accelerate the digital transformation of the Group. He has a strong background in developing digital strategies, identifying business opportunities and anticipating technological trends for the insurance and financial services industry. Thibaut has worked with a range of international organizations in the Silicon Valley, Spain, France and Australia, from large corporations like BNP Paribas, EADS and GFT to small start-ups like Coregistros in Barcelona. He participated in many leading global technology conferences and he is the author of several white papers and reports on Open Innovation, Mobile banking, Mobile payment, Social media and IT trends. Thibaut holds a Master’s Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Télécom SudParis (formerly Institut National des Télécommunications) with a specialization at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain).

A lifelong entrepreneur, Fabrice Sergent is the Founder and CEO of Cellfish, one of the largest mobile and social media application publishers with a reach to over 150 million music, sports and entertainment fans around the world. He is a media and Internet entrepreneur with 20 years of experience. He is based in the company’s New York headquarters. Under Sergent’s leadership, the company has completed three successful acquisitions since its founding in 2004: Bandsintown, the No. 1 concert discovery application with over 10 million registered users, ToneMedia, a leading digital advertising platform built solely around music content reaching 120 million consumers every month, and Cellfish Studios (formerly Airborne Mobile), a mobile app publisher. Today, Cellfish generates nearly $100 million in revenue and employs a global team of 240 across offices in New York, San Diego, Paris, Montréal, and Düsseldorf. Sergent also serves as chair of the Advisory Board for the Mobile Giving Foundation, for which Cellfish provides the technology platform in order to process mobile-giving transactions that empower non-profit organizations and donors. In 1995, Sergent was the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Club-Internet, one of the first and largest French consumer ISPs, which was purchased in 2000 by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Online (the largest European ISP) for a historical €1.2 billion transaction, a landmark deal in the European new media space for its time. Sergent also served for 11 years as the CEO of Lagardère Active Broadband, the digital arm of Lagardère, one of the world’s largest media groups headquartered in Paris. Between 1998 and 2006, he served as a member of the Executive Board of the TV and radio subsidiary of Lagardère (Lagardère Active). Additionally, Sergent served as a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Online for many years while it was a public company, and a board member for Europe1 Interactive, Hachette Multimedia and Le Monde Interactif. Sergent holds an MBA from Institut Telecom. He is married, has two children and resides in Westchester County in New York.

Axelle Lemaire has been the French Secretary of State for Digital Affairs since April 2014. She calls her current position the “portfolio for imagination”.
Born in Canada in 1974, she studied political science at Sciences Po in Paris and law at the Sorbonne and King’s College London. She worked as a researcher and international lawyer before entering politics as a parliamentary assistant in the House of Commons.
In 2012, Axelle Lemaire was elected in the French National Assembly to represent the French diaspora living in Northern Europe. As the Secretary of the Law Committee and a member of the European Affairs Committee, her main areas of interest were the digital society and digital economy, the protection of human rights and gender equality, and European politics.
The mother of two children, Axelle enjoys reading, running, and travelling.

Photo credit: ©merpn-PatrickVEDRUNE

Benoist Grossman joined Idinvest Partners in 2002. He was appointed as board member in 2003 and operates mainly in the Internet sector. Before joining Idinvest Partners, Benoist worked for several venture capital funds for over 10 years. He was a partner at Viventures from 1998 to 2002 and worked as Investment Manager at La Financière de Brienne. He had previously spent over 10 years working in the industry as a laser systems specialist at EDF, NASA and Thomson-CSF Optronique, for whom he invented five patents and authored over twenty publications. Benoist Grossmann has a doctorate in physics from Université Paris VI and an MBA from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. Benoist Grossmann is currently on the boards of Viadeo, Sigfox, Withings, Winamax and previously on the boards of Criteo, Dailymotion, Meetic.

Eric Carreel is a French engineer and entrepreneur. He started his career in institutional research in the field of radio. He then co-founded Inventel and remained its President from 2002 to 2005, being recognized as one of the major architects of Triple Play in Europe. Inventel invented the Livebox for France Télécom. After Inventel’s takeover by Thomson in 2005, he became Technical Director of Thomson's household products division while creating and managing the Advanced Product Development group. Eric Carreel is Chairman and co-founder of Withings – which creates smart connected devices and apps for health and wellbeing –, Sculpteo – an online 3D printing service – and Invoxia – which creates VoIP Audio and telephony desktop devices. Eric is an engineer from the Industrial Physics & Chemistry Grande École in Paris (ESPCI) and has a PhD in engineering from the University of Paris VI. He is the author of around fifty patents. He received the Engineer of the Year 2011 Award for an entrepreneur by the French National Council of Engineers and Scientists and the Digital Technology Innovator 2012 Award by Télécom Paris Tech. Eric Carreel is Vice President of France Digitale, which aims to promote and support the digital economy in France. He is responsible for the plan “Connected Objects of the New Industrial France” initiated by the French Government.

Alex Iskold is the Managing Director of Techstars in New York City. Previously Alex was Founder/CEO of GetGlue (acquired by i.tv), Founder/CEO of Information Laboratory (acquired by IBM), and Chief Architect of DataSynapse (acquired by TIBCO). Alex created GetGlue, the leading social TV network, backed by Union Square Ventures, RRE Ventures, TimeWarner Investments and Rho Ventures. GetGlue has been named breakout start-up of 2011 by Mashable and Top 10 Video Innovator by Fast Company. In 2012 The Hollywood Reporter named Alex among top 50 digital power players. Alex’s first start-up, Information Laboratory, created a tool that helped software architects find problems in their code. IBM acquired the company in 2003, and much of Alex’s work made its way into widely used IBM Rational Developer and Architect products. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Alex also contributed hundreds of articles to ReadWriteWeb, and taught an award-winning undergraduate software engineering class at NYU. An engineer by training, Alex has deep passion and appreciation for start-ups, digital products and elegant code. He likes running, yoga, complex systems, Murakami books and red wine. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all together.

Guillaume has started his career in digital in 1996. For 15 years, he has worked at leading digital agencies such as Nurun and Razorfish (now part of the Publicis Group) to advise high-profile brands on their digital strategies. His international client roster includes brands like McDonald’s, Nike, L’Oréal, Danone, Nissan, Sanofi and PlayStation. In 2010, Guillaume moved abroad with his wife and two kids to work as a Client Partner at Razorfish San Francisco to work with Sony Electronics, Intel and Walt Disney Studios. Moving back to France in September 2011, Guillaume joined DDB (part of the Omnicom Group) to develop and manage Digital University, its digital evangelization and training unit. As CEO of Digital University, Guillaume and his team have designed and delivered 650+ hours of bespoke programs for 1,700+ people from 21 nationalities in 10 countries for McDonald’s, Bouygues Telecom, Manpower, Chanel, LVMH and BNP Paribas. In addition to his various duties, Guillaume has also been a Guest Speaker at CELSA (the Communication School from the University of Paris Sorbonne), a Senior Lecturer at the “Institut d’Etudes Politiques” of Paris (Sciences Po Paris) and a Guest Lecturer at the General Management Program of CEDEP. Since November 2013, Guillaume is Director of AXA Lab, a digital innovation sourcing unit located in San Francisco, which aims at connecting AXA with Silicon Valley’s Tech players, detect latest trends, develop the Group’s digital culture and initiate pilot projects. He is also a Guest lecturer at IMD AXA Digital Leaders program.

After Graduating from EM Lyon Business School and a first experience at Coca-Cola, Geoffray spent 10 years at LVMH in various Sales and Marketing positions, both operational and strategic, local and international. In the Wine & Spirits division of the Group he contributed to grow the brand equity of leading brands like Dom Pérignon in the UK and Moët & Chandon at Global level. He joined Accor 7 years ago to contribute to the repositioning of Sofitel as a luxury brand. Among the highlights of his last position as Vice President Marketing & Digital were fruitful partnerships with famous names like Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Lacroix, Kenzo Takada or Hermès and successful digital platforms which lead to the doubling of sales on sofitel.com in 3 years and furthermore, his achievement of making Sofitel become a reference in luxury hospitality for social media. Recently appointed as Vice President Product & Service Accor Midscale brands, his mission is to both reinforce the offers and find segment synergies in order to bring value to Novotel & Mercure brands cumulating over 1,200 hotels in over 70 countries.

After graduating from the Hotel School Paris-Clichy, David Esseryk moved on to getting a master’s degree in Management, an MBA from the University of Oxford, and a Lean Six Sigma formation at the prestigious École centrale Paris. He makes his first professional steps at Accor in Saint Barthélémy before joining Starwoods Hotels & Resorts in 1998, and then Marriott International in 2001 as Project Director. In 2007 he returns to his first love at Accor as Director of Product Innovation & Technology, before becoming in 2011 VP Consumer Technology in charge of new technologies.

With degrees from the Centrale Lyon engineering school and the IAE business school, Stéphane joined Air France in 1998 after working as a "coopérant" at the French Embassy in Morocco. He helped to promote the Revenue Management structure within Air France, where he held different supervisory positions. In 2002, he joined the Deputy Director General in charge of Marketing and Network planning as his “chief of staff”, before taking charge of strategic planning in 2005. In 2007, he was appointed head of development for the Air France websites. Since 2012, he is in charge of Air France's Digital Marketing.

Adrianne Jeffries is a reporter for The Verge, a tech news and culture site based in New York City. She started in journalism at age 16 and broke into the tech beat at ReadWriteWeb before moving on to run tech coverage at The New York Observer. Her favorite gadget is her Kindle.

Emmanuel Saint-Martin is the New York correspondent for France 24, a news channel. He is also the founder of French Morning, a webmagazine for the French American community with 5 editions in the US. He has lived in New York for 10 years. He was previously with the news magazine Le Point. He has published several books, including "L'Arrogance Française" (2003) and "Et surtout n'en parlez à personne ; l'Affaire Madoff" (2009).

Jean-Philippe (JP) Maheu leads the Global Agency Partnership and Brand Strategy teams at Twitter. JP was most recently CEO of Bluefin Labs, which was acquired by Twitter in February 2013. Under JP’s leadership, Bluefin achieved remarkable sales traction with leading brands and strengthened its market leading position. Twitter’s acquisition of Bluefin Labs led AdAge to name JP as one of the “eight great digital hires of 2012”. Prior to Bluefin, JP served in executive leadership positions at Razorfish, Ogilvy & Mather and Publicis Modem. He spent six years with Razorfish, where he ascended to the role of CEO for the last two years. Following that, he was the Chief Digital Officer at Ogilvy, responsible for digital growth and innovation across the company's operating units. More recently, JP was Global CEO of Publicis Modem, the digital marketing unit of Publicis Worldwide. JP holds an MBA from J.L. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and a MS in Network & Computer Sciences from Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, France.

Melissa Ceria is a journalist and the founder of Studio Ceria, a boutique media agency that produces custom speaker series for companies. Through talks and conversations with thought leaders and entrepreneurs, Studio Ceria offers audiences access to innovative ideas, new networks and inspiring content. Melissa co-produces the international Art de Vivre talks at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York. Speakers she has presented include Oscar de la Renta, Carine Roitfeld, Tory Burch, Danny Meyer, Adam Gopnik, Bernard Tschumi, and Eric Ripert. In 2012-13, Melissa produced the speaker series for the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which welcomes media executives from over 50 countries and 500 companies from all sectors of television, internet, mobile and technology. After starting her journalism career as the Eye Editor for Women’s Wear Daily and W magazine, Melissa became a fashion writer for Harper’s Bazaar. Her writing on fashion, style, and design has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Time Style & Design, Elle Decor, Departures, and Travel + Leisure. Melissa graduated from Harvard University. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and their three children.

Sean Rad, 27, is the CoFounder and CEO of Tinder. Rad's passion for enhancing the way people communicate and share moments was apparent from a young age, leading him to launch several successful business ventures all with that social mission. In 2005, Rad founded Orgoo, a unified communications platform for consumers. In 2009, Rad became Founder and President of Ad.ly, the largest celebrity endorsement platform for social media. In 2012, Rad founded the mobile app Tinder, spearheading innovation in social discovery, for which he was recognized in Forbes' 30 under 30 in 2013. Sean attended University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he was born and raised.

Arun Sundararajan is Professor and NEC Faculty Fellow at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He also heads the Social Cities Initiative at NYU's Center for Urban Science+Progress, and is an affiliated faculty member at NYU's Center for Data Science. Professor Sundararajan's research program studies how digital technologies transform business and society. Some of his current and recent research focuses on the governance of digital spaces, collaborative consumption and the sharing economy, social media and cities, digital institutions, contagion in networks, privacy strategy, pricing in digital markets and managing online piracy. He has published in numerous scientific journals and has given more than 200 conference and invited presentations internationally. His research has been recognized by four Best Paper awards, been supported by organizations that include Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and IBM, and recently profiled by trade publications that include The Atlantic, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Forbes, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal. His op-eds and expert commentary have appeared in TIME Magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Wired, TechCrunch, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Harvard Business Review, and on Al Jazeera, BBC News, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Fox, NPR and PBS. He has served as Director of NYU Stern's IS Doctoral Program since 2007, and is one of the founders of the Workshop on Information in Networks. He holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and the University of Rochester. Follow him on Twitter @digitalarun.

Benjamin Teszner is the Chief Executive Officer of PrestaShop, a recognized leader in open source solutions for e-Commerce. He has been the CEO since 2012. Benjamin started his career as an entrepreneur by founding Alafac.com, a community internet site dedicated to students. After successfully financing and selling Alafac.com, Benjamin moved into the private equity sector. In 2001, he co-founded UFG-Siparex, a venture capital and growth fund with more than €300m in assets under management. With a passion for technology and start-ups, Benjamin actively participated in the growth and success of several companies including Netasq (sold to EADS) and Roctool (IPO in the Alternext). In 2005, Benjamin was named Chief Operating Officer at Weinberg Capital Partners, an independent investment firm with more than €800m in assets under management. Prior to joining PrestaShop, Benjamin was CEO of O2i Group, a publicly traded company on the Alternext, leader in graphic production and professional computer training. Benjamin holds a Master in Management (MiM) from HEC, a BSc of Politics and Economics from Sciences-Po and a BSc of Economics from the London School of Economics.

John Frankel is the founding partner of ff Venture Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in New York and New Jersey, and has been an early-stage investor since late 1999. John was one of the earliest investors in Quigo Technologies, which was purchased by AOL in December 2007, and in Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD on NASDAQ), which had a successful IPO in March 2011. John currently serves on the boards of 500px, Adcade, Appy Couple, Bottlenose, Cardflight, ClearPath Immigration, CoPromote, Distil Networks, Estify, InteraXon, Milkster, Moveline, Mulu, Phone.com, Tackk, Unikey, and VolunteerSpot. Prior to founding ffVC in 2008, John worked at Goldman Sachs for 21 years in a variety of roles that involved technology development, reengineering, and capital markets. In particular, he established Goldman’s Cayman offshore administration business, their London global custody business, and reengineered their global prime brokerage business. In capital markets, he worked closely with some of the world’s leading hedge funds, and developed a keen understanding of portfolio risk/return management. He started his business career in London with Arthur Anderson in the audit and insolvency divisions. John earned a Master of Arts from New College, Oxford where he studied Mathematics, Philosophy and Logic, and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. John is a frequent keynote speaker and has appeared in leading publications such as BBC, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Business Insider, CNBC, GigaOM, The San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Xconomy.

Jordan Crook is a writer/reporter based out of Brooklyn, NY. She writes about things teens like. She snaps innocent selfies and vines nudes. She has written for publications such as Mobile Marketer and MobileBurn. She is now a writer at TechCrunch.

Sabrina Quagliozzi is the New York correspondent for the economic and financial news channel, BFM Business. She covers the Wall Street news from the Nasdaq studios on Times Square. She also presents a weekly show, the “Grand Journal de New York”, on the French nationals living in the US. Sabrina has been living in New York for over 10 years. She has previously worked for Bloomberg TV.

Tariq Krim, founder of Netvibes (2005), and founder/CEO of Jolicloud (2009), is an advocate for new technologies and a strong voice for the emergence of European start-ups aiming for international exposure. In March 2014, he handed Fleur Pellerin, then Minister Delegate with responsibility for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Innovation and the Digital Economy, his report “Developers: an Asset for France” and he has made recommendations to support the recognition of this branch. He has been awarded the prestigious scientific prize TR35 by MIT’s Technology Review, naming the top 35 innovators under the age of 35. Tariq Krim is the first Frenchman to obtain the award for the “Internet” category. Tariq Krim is one of the six French people that have been named Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum back in 2008. In April 2008, he received the IT award for business creation by Télécom ParisTech and its engineers association (AIST). In January 2011, he is made Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Building on his past experiences at LeGuide.com and Quamedia as Customer Relationship Director, Jérémie Peiro launches Lengow in July 2009 alongside Mickael Froger. The company offers an innovative solution for e-merchants to optimize the visibility and profitability of their online campaigns on all ad platforms: from comparison shopping sites to marketplaces, going through retargeting, sponsored links and social networks. Today, Lengow employs 75 people throughout Nantes and Paris, is managing more than 2,800 e-commerce websites (La Redoute, Fnac, Quicksilver, Décathlon…) and is partnering up with more than 1,200 broadcasters throughout the world.

Manuel D. Medina is the founding and managing partner of Medina Capital. Medina has more than 30 years of experience as a highly successful businessman with expertise in areas including technology, finance, international business, and government contracting. Medina was the Founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Terremark Worldwide, Inc., a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ exchange until April of 2011 when Terremark was acquired by Verizon Communications, Inc. Under his leadership, Terremark distinguished itself as the leading global provider of managed IT infrastructure services for Fortune 500 enterprises and federal government agencies. At Terremark, Medina brought his vision to deliver a comprehensive set of best-of-breed IT infrastructure services from purpose-built, carrier-neutral data center facilities to fruition. Medina began his career in 1974 as a CPA with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He founded Terremark in 1980 and undertook complex infrastructure projects throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Medina’s vision transformed Terremark from a commercial real estate company into a global technology leader. His track record of successfully raising funds across the entire capital structure during periods of rapid change in the macroeconomic environment was vital to Terremark’s successful growth as he raised over $1 billion for Terremark, expanded its industry leading services globally, and stewarded it through the very difficult financial environments in 2000 and 2008 to an ultimate $2 billion sale to Verizon Communications representing the highest EBITDA multiple in the IT infrastructure sector at the time. Medina has been recognized with accolades from many business and community organizations for his leadership and community service and is a frequent speaker on topics ranging from technology trends and global business to entrepreneurship. He has also served as the keynote speaker and panelist at large conferences and IT industry tradeshows. Medina’s leadership in the IT industry and insightful analysis of market trends have resulted in appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business as well as interviews with internationally recognized media outlets on topics such as the rising adoption of cloud computing, cybersecurity and the dynamics driving key government IT initiatives. Medina received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Florida Atlantic University.

Roland Hamilton is currently Managing Director, USA for Dailymotion, the world’s second largest video website with over 200 million monthly visitors worldwide. Hamilton leads US operations for Dailymotion including overseeing content, finance, sales and marketing. Previously Hamilton was the SVP of Sales for Dailymotion where for over 2 years he led a national sales team focused on video advertising solutions for Fortune 1000 brands. Hamilton’s team forged advertising partnerships with some of the world's leading advertisers including Procter and Gamble, Disney, Electronic Arts, and Frito Lay. Prior to Dailymotion, Hamilton ran national sales at Fox Digital Media’s Beliefnet. During his 5 years as VP of Sales he built a national sales organization that drove triple-digit revenue growth resulting in an acquisition by News Corporation in November 2007. With over 15 years of experience in digital media, Hamilton has held senior roles at CBS, NBC, DoubleClick and Fox. He is an active member of the IAB’s digital video counsel and a co-chair of New York Advertising Club’s Media Action Committee. He lives with his wife Melanie and son Trey in the East Village of New York City.

An American whose love of fashion and luxury brought her to Paris where she worked as a product manager at Chanel and L´Occitane en Provence. It was while trying to sell some of her own clothing and fashion accessories in her overflowing closet and finding no suitable sites on which to do so that she realized that there was a clear need for a specialized site that could appeal to fashion lovers and where they would feel comfortable buying and selling pre-loved treasures. The idea to launch Videdressing was born. Meryl holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master’s from ESCP Europe.

Erin Griffith is a writer for Fortune covering tech startups. Previously she worked as East Coast Editor at PandoDaily, staff writer at Adweek, private equity blogger for peHUB, and M&A reporter at Mergermarket. She has written for BBC, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Time Out New York, Huffington Post, FT.com, and BUST.

Alain Bankier, a serial entrepreneur and an active early stage investor, is currently incubating several new businesses in the food and education verticals. Until late 2013, Alain was Co-President and CEO of The Manischewitz Company. In 2002, Alain co-founded the Saveur Food Group (SFG) to create, acquire and build branded food companies and in 2008 Manischewitz was merged with SFG. In the mid 90’s, Alain was the co-founder of a leading New York based angel investment group, which was the precursor of the New York Angels. As a leading member of the New York Angels, Alain invests in a wide variety of technology, media and content companies, as well as companies in France and Israel. Alain is a board member/ advisor to a variety of companies and has been instrumental in achieving exit opportunities for several of these businesses. Combining his knowledge of the food industry and his experience in the tech and media startup world, Alain has been focusing on investment opportunities at the intersection of food, media and technology. Before his adventures in the food industry, Alain was a founder of an international boutique investment bank, which he sold to BNPParisbas and where he remained as the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions- Corporate Finance North Americas. Alain has a has a BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, a BS in Economics from The Wharton School and an MBA from New York University and from HEC, Paris.

As an angel investor and mentor to entrepreneurs, Brian serves as Chairman of the New York Angels, the #1 most active angel group in the country, with more than $95M invested into more that 100 early stage companies. Brian was the first investor in Pinterest, and numerous other industry leading startups. As a new author, Brian‘s book entitled “What Every Angel Investor Wants You To Know: An Insider Reveals How To Get Smart Funding For Your Billion Dollar Idea”, was published and released by McGraw Hill in April 2013. As a social entrepreneur, Brian is the founding Board member of Center4, NYC’s first technology accelerator devoted to serving the non-profit community. As a disruptive media entrepreneur, Brian believes that all new products, services, and ideas should be easy to discover, find, share and buy. As a result, Brian co-founded Launch.it, with his son Trace in May 2012, the first direct-to-customer, event news and social engagement platform currently being used by the world’s largest events to create a central location for all exhibitor and partner news. As a social medial specialist, Brian created iFluence PR in 2009, a strategic behavioral-based communications consultancy for the new earned influence / social media community. As a technology media communications strategist, Brian is considered one of the fathers of science & technology strategic communications, and co-founded Technology Solutions, Inc. with his wife Carol in 1983. TSI's client list read like an entrepreneurial Who's Who of startup technology companies in computing, communication, software, education, and entertainment. For more than a decade, Brian maintained a broad strategic communications partnership with Sony & IBM Corporation providing counsel to dozens of their new technology divisions. Notably, TSI received the Gold CIPRA Award in 1998 for the IBM Deep Blue/Gary Kasparov Chess Match Concept and Communications Program. In 1996, TSI was recognized as the #1 fastest growing agency in the U.S Brian sold the company to The McCann Erickson World Group in 1997 and became the Vice Chairman. As a researcher, Brian created Focus Technology, an organization that provided qualitative research and instituted the RPM model of integrated strategic communications providing ultra-competitive technology clients the ability to quickly discover and leverage their key strengths, as well as mitigate their destructive weaknesses. As a publisher, Brian was a pioneer in helping start a number of the first computing publications, to include Computer Systems News and InformationWeek Magazine. As an educator, Brian created the AIMS (Advanced Internet Media Studies) Program, a college semester program where students will be trained to use the internet smartly and professionally. He also advises entrepreneur students at NYU and Columbia University. As a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award, Brian holds a Masters Degree in Science Communications from Boston University's School of Public Communications.

Marc-David Choukroun is the co-founder and CEO at The Food Assembly. He grew up in Paris and started his career in 2004 as a project manager for Ogilvy Interactive, one of the leading web agencies in the world. There, he coordinated strategic projects for global brands such as Nestlé, Sephora or Louis Vuitton. In 2008, he launched his own web agency and started working with SMB’s and start-ups. In 2010, he met with Guilhem Chéron and together they launched The Food Assembly in September 2011 under the name La Ruche qui dit Oui ! The Food Assembly is a web platform enabling users to group themselves and buy food from their local farmers directly. Each Assembly is an autonomous community where consumers and farmers trade and interact directly. No need to go through traditional middlemen anymore. In June 2014, the network already accounts for more than 500 communities in France and Belgium, with over 50 000 consumers and 3 000 farmers trading directly and collaboratively. At the moment, the platform is launching in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom and the start-up has great ambitions for the future : empower local communities everywhere in Europe and in the world.

Michael Amar is Co-Founder and CEO of Ifeelgoods, a fast-growing start-up enabling marketers to reward seamlessly their audiences for acquisition or retention goals. Michael has spent the last decade at the intersection of online media, retail and innovative technologies. Prior to founding Ifeelgoods, Michael founded and successfully sold a successful ad network in the EU, and an online media buying agency, number one independent French media company at the time he sold it in 2007. As CEO of Ifeelgoods, Michael is leveraging his leadership, experience and insights in e-commerce and online advertising to grow the use of digital rewards in the advertising, promotion and loyalty industries. Michael lives in Palo Alto, California.

Ian Sigalow is a Co-Founder and Partner of Greycroft LLC. Ian has been a venture capitalist since 2001, and has spent his entire career working with early stage technology companies. Over the last few years he has had a particular interest in the intersection of advertising, software, and mobility. Ian currently oversees a number of Greycroft investments, including industry leaders such as Buddy Media, Collective, Extreme Reach, and JW Player. Prior to joining Greycroft, Ian founded StrongData Corporation, a pioneer in digital encryption, and spent several years as a venture capitalist with Boston Millennia Partners, where he focused on the Software, Wireless, and Internet sectors. Ian’s past experience also includes investment banking in the technology group at Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette and strategy consulting with the Arnold Business Strategy Group. Ian holds a BS in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Itzhak Fisher serves as Executive Vice President, Global Business Development for Nielsen. Appointed to this role in January 2011, Itzhak holds responsibility for strategic business development initiatives and mergers and acquisitions to benefit clients and their priorities. In addition, Itzhak is the Founder and Chairman of Pereg Ventures, the Nielsen backed early stage venture fund. Previously, Itzhak led Global Product Leadership, guiding the development and delivery of all Nielsen product solutions to the marketplace. Before that, he was Executive Chairman of Nielsen’s Online Division, encompassing Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics solutions. A prominent entrepreneur in high-technology businesses for three decades, Itzhak has led ventures through mergers, acquisitions and initial public offerings. Previously, he was co-founder and chairman of Trendum, a leader in Internet search and linguistic analysis technologies, which was subsequently acquired by The Nielsen Company. In 2005, he led Trendum’s acquisition of BuzzMetrics, a market leader in online word-of-mouth research, and negotiated its 2006 acquisition of Intelliseek. Itzhak served as chairman of the combined entity, Nielsen BuzzMetrics. Previously, Itzhak founded and served as President and CEO of RSL Communications (NASDAQ: RSLC), a telecommunications firm which operated in 22 countries on four continents with over $1.5 billion in revenues. Itzhak holds a Bachelor's of Science degree in computer science from the New York Institute of Technology, and pursued advanced studies in computer science at New York University.

Luigi is currently Mergers and Acquisitions Integration Director for Dell Software. His role is to help acquired companies join Dell and accelerate their growth in Europe, Middle-East and Africa region. Intrapreneurial spirit and passion for start-up businesses brought him to initiate Le Center for Entrepreneurs in France, a program aimed at supporting growth of La French Tech by sharing expertise, resources and networking with entrepreneurs. Luigi holds an Executive MBA from HEC Paris, has started multiple growing and thriving businesses for Dell and is a recognized thought leader across the company for Marketing, Strategy, Services and Operations expertise.

Paul is co-founder and CEO of Dots and Partner at betaworks. Prior to betaworks, he was COO of Aviary. Before Aviary, he was chief of staff for Microsoft's Office product division. He is an advisor/investor/board member for a number of startups.

Born in France, in 1971, Raouti has earned a PhD in Town and Country Planning. He is specialized in economic development and fundraising. After two years in the USA in the mid 90’s, where he worked on several projects in the field of economic development towards infrastructure projects (airport, malls…), he decided in 1994, with the rise of the .com industry, to specialize in digital industry and finance. He graduated from Stanford University (SCPD) in 2011 under the “innovation and entrepreneurship program”. In 1994, he launched Incubanet in Lille, a place to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the emerging phases of the web industry, and joined DigiPort to drive the international development program for digital companies for the region (start-ups and SMEs export program development, fund raising, market assessment, partnership development…). In 2003, he took the lead on Euratechnologies’ strategic development plan and he now aims to develop one of the biggest incubators/accelerators in the world (25,000 sqm) in a textile factory dating from the 1900’s. Since 2011, Raouti is the CEO of Euratechnologies. From the start-up phase to an international business, Euratechnologies specializes in four areas: e-business & Pure Players, Information systems and software edition, Internet companies, and SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud). Euratechnologies is welcoming young entrepreneurs with just an idea, start-ups, SMEs and big corporate players (Microsoft, CISCO, TATA, ASOS, Cap Gemini...) and is developing a unique entrepreneurship support center, providing access to technology transfers, to money, to talent and to specific markets. Launched in 2009, Euratechnologies represents today 140 tech businesses, 30 incubation projects each year, 60 start-up accelerator projects and more than 2,500 people working there everyday. Euratechnologies is also welcoming 300 tech events and more than 40,000 visitors each year. Euratechnologies is connected to a range of international partners all over the world to support the international development of its tech companies portfolio (Stanford University, Silicon Valley/New York, Dubai, Shanghai/Beijing, Belo Horizonte...).

With over 15 years of experience in marketing technologies through founding five start-ups and investing in over 100 since 1999, Nihal Mehta is a noted expert in the emerging adoption of mobile technologies for media properties and consumer brands. Nihal is a Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures, the first seed stage venture fund focusing exclusively on mobile technologies. Prior to Eniac, Nihal founded LocalResponse, Inc., which makes ads more relevant from social signals, a pivot from buzzd, the first mobile real-time city guide. Nihal grew LocalResponse to an eight-digit annual revenue run rate which placed the company to the Forbes 2013 list as #67 of America's Most Promising Companies and #568 on the 2013 Inc. 5000's Fastest Growing Companies. Prior to LocalResponse, Nihal founded ipsh!, one of the first full-service mobile marketing agencies in 2001, which was acquired by Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) in 2005. Nihal's investment portfolio includes Admob (sold to Google), Airbnb, HotelTonight, Swiftkey, Tapad & Uber. Nihal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Philosophy and a BSE in Computer Science. He frequently guest lectures at business schools around the country on entrepreneurship and mobile marketing, and is published in over 15 books and white papers on the subject. In 2013, Nihal Mehta was named a semi-finalist for "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernst & Young, in 2012 a top 100 "Coolest People in NY Tech," by Business Insider, a "NYC tech influencer" by VentureBeat, one of the "25 People Every New Founder Should Meet in New York Tech" a top "25 Up-And-Coming Start-up CEO in New York" by Business Insider, and a 2012 AlwaysOn "Power Player NYC." Mehta was named a top 10 New York City "Game Changer" in the 2010 New York Enterprise Report, one of twenty RCR Wireless News "Mobile Movers and Shakers" in 2008, a BusinessWeek "M-Commerce Baron" in 2006 and named one of Ad Age's "Top 20 Marketers in Their 20s" in 2005.

Cassie Marketos is the head of community at Vayable. She's worked with Kickstarter in the past and travels prolifically in the present.

After 5 years at Bain, a top strategy consulting firm, Cécile joins FSI (French sovereign fund), now having merged with Oseo and CDCE to build Bpifrance, the French public investment bank. For over a year, she has been Director of Development for Innovation at Bpifrance. Together with Paul-François Fournier, Executive Director Innovation, she has defined new strategic axes (“NOVA”) to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in France, and accelerate growth to create future leaders. She has been an active member of the French Tech team since its origins and keeps mobilizing the French ecosystem of entrepreneurs and investors to help its current transformation.

Gaël Duval is a serial entrepreneur in the digital sector since 1995 and is a business angel for more than a dozen digital start-ups such as 24h00, Adictiz, Carnet de mode, Ykone, DeRemate, OLX, Roomorama, WebHelp... Currently he is the founder and CEO of JeChange.fr, the first price comparison website dedicated to reducing household bills such as telecoms, energy and insurance. In 2013, JeChange.fr has generated more than 5 million euros of savings for households. Previously, Gaël successfully started and sold several rapid growth companies: Alpaga (an online marketing agency) in 2000 that merged with BLL to form B2L/bbdo (Omnicom group), a leading web agency. Founder of Kangaroo Village, the first start-up incubator. In 2004 he is the founder and CEO of Nextedia, later acquired by Lagardère. He is also the co-founder of France Digitale, an association for VCs and start-ups of the digital economy. He is world champion of Kem’s, passionate about art photography and doped by entrepreneurship.

Cédric Giorgi is the founder of Cookenig, a marketplace of people who want to be guests or hosts of home cooked meals. In addition to this, Cédric is highly involved in and connected to the French start-up ecosystem: he founded French Startupers, a group gathering more than a 1,000 French start-up founders, participates in the organization of numerous events such as the LeWeb conference, and intervenes in accelerators as well as in schools.

After a degree in Finance & Management in Creative Industries at EDHEC Business School, Léo headed towards the world of Arts & Entertainment in which he worked for 5 years. He specialized in fund-raising, patronage & sponsorship in small Parisian cultural establishments (theaters & theater companies). He joined the French Touch team at the beginning of 2014 and oversees all the sponsoring for the event.

As an American, French and Israeli citizen, Remy has a strong interest in developing cross-cultural ties. After an MSc in Management from Audencia Nantes with a specialization in Strategy and International Business and several experiences in project management on both sides of the Atlantic, he eagerly joins the French Touch team to promote French entrepreneurship internationally.

A Sciences Po student, her interest in business has led her to attend HEC and prepare a double Master’s degree. Her first experiences are in social entrepreneurship, in France and in the Philippines. After spending a year studying in Boston, she now wishes to share the French and American mindsets, to mutually learn and innovate!

Delegate General at France Digitale. Educational leader for e-business at the Web School Factory. Author of Internet Marketing 2013. The only entrepreneur who likes ties.

Clara Delétraz is a start-up lover, innovation strategist and public entrepreneur. She is currently the deputy director of Mission French Tech, a French government initiative to grow and promote internationally French start-ups. Prior to that, she was Marketing and Innovation manager at Paris Saclay, a government agency aiming at developing a leading European R&D cluster in the Greater Paris area. She graduated with an MBA from ESSEC Business School.

Valérie Benjamin is the founder and CEO of HAPPY COMPANY, a consulting agency specialized in event communication. HAPPY COMPANY conceives and brings alive event communication plans adapted for brands (both BtoB and BtoC). Before entering the world of entrepreneurship, she was the communication director for Paris 2012 bid. Valérie then joined NRJ Events as an executive director and finally worked as deputy managing director at \AUDITOIRE (TBWA group), a well-known French event communication agency. Oh, and she also loves bags and shoes.