Disruptor 50 Roadshow: Los Angeles

The CNBC Disruptor 50 list identifies 50 private companies whose innovations are transforming the economy and revolutionizing their industries.

After six years, we’re taking these principles on the road. The CNBC Disruptor 50 Roadshow will gather Disruptor 50 company founders, leaders and investors in thriving start-up communities to compare notes, debate and discuss the challenges and opportunities available to entrepreneurs, and share actionable advice with engaged live audiences.

Who should attend: Entrepreneurs, small-business owners, start-ups and VCs who want to:

  • Learn how to transform big ideas into successful companies.
  • Gain insider access to the latest trends and technologies.
  • Build their network and discover new business opportunities.
  • Discover and test out hacks to take their business to the next level.

Speakers

Dana Settle

Dana Settle is a Founding Partner with Greycroft, and she heads the firm’s west coast office out of Los Angeles.

Prior to Greycroft, Dana spent several years as a venture capitalist and advisor to startup companies in the Bay Area, including six years at Mayfield, where she focused on early stage companies in the mobile communications and consumer Internet markets.

Dana currently serves or observes on the boards of Greycroft’s investments in AppAnnie, EBTH.com, Instantly, Steelhouse, TheRealReal, Clique Media Group, and WideOrbit. She also managed the firm’s investments in Maker Studios (sold to Disney), Viddy (sold to FullScreen), AwesomenessTV (sold to Dreamworks), Digisynd (sold to Disney), ContentNext (sold to Guardian Media), MoVoxx (sold to Motricity), Pulse (sold to LinkedIn), Sometrics (sold to American Express) and Trunk Club (sold to Nordstrom).

Dana also serves as a Board of Director to IMAX Corporation. Her additional experience includes business development at Truveo (AOL), investment banking at Lehman Brothers and international business development at McCaw Cellular Communications (AT&T).

Dana holds a BA in Finance and International Studies from the University of Washington and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mark Suster

Mark Suster is a Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures, where he has led investments including Density, Imbellus, Invoca, mitú, Osmo, and Maker Studios (acquired by Disney in 2015.) Mark joined Upfront in 2007 after having previously worked with the firm for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. Before joining Upfront, Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com following its acquisition of Koral, where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, a European SaaS company that was acquired by SWORD Group. Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S.

Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Katerina Schneider

Katerina Markov Schneider is the founder and CEO of Ritual. Previously, she was a Venture Partner with Troy Carter in his investment fund, AF Square where she managed an active portfolio of over 70 investments including Dropbox, Warby Parker, Spotify, Uber and Lyft. Previously, she served as Head of Global Innovation at Atom Factory, leading digital strategy & high-level technology partnerships for such Atom Factory artists as Lady Gaga and John Legend, along with associated brands and investment portfolio companies. She previously served as Global Lead of Digital Innovation at Universal Music Group; and before that, was the Senior Business Development Advisor to the company’s Chairman & CEO.

Schneider earned a degree from Brown University in Applied Mathematics-Economics. She also serves on the board of several startups, was recently named in the Forbes 30 under 30 for Venture Capital, serves as a Global Shaper for the World Economic Forum and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Leura Fine

Leura Fine is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Laurel & Wolf, the online interior design service that makes it fun, easy, and affordable to decorate your space.

Leura is a professional interior designer turned entrepreneur. After working as the senior designer for a leading interior design firm, she launched her own business, Leura Fine Interiors, in 2013. Frustrated by the archaic business model of the interior design industry, Leura set out to democratize it by establishing a better way for clients and designers to work together. Laurel & Wolf was born in late 2014 and has helped thousands of people all over the country bring their design dreams to life.

Leura was named Forbes 30 Under 30 for Retail & eCommerce and was most recently awarded Goldman Sachs Builders + Innovators 100 “Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs,” and has been featured in numerous publications including but not limited to The New York Times, TechCrunch and Architectural Digest. She has raised $25.5M in venture capital from top venture capital funds Benchmark and Charles River Ventures. Laurel & Wolf was also named “25 Hot Los Angeles Startups to Watch” and was on Business Insider's list “33 startups to watch in 2017.”

Eric Garcetti

Eric Garcetti is a fourth-generation Angeleno and the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles. Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley — the son of public servants and the grandson and great-grandson of immigrants from Mexico and Eastern Europe — Mayor Garcetti’s life has been shaped by a deep commitment to the core values of justice, dignity, and equality for all people.

These ideals have fueled the Mayor’s relentless drive to fulfill our common obligation: to give children and families of every race, faith, background, and income the chance to get a good education, live on safe streets, earn a decent wage, breathe clean air and drink clean water, receive affordable medical and child care, and build a future of their own choosing.

Angelenos are experiencing the remarkable results of his vision and leadership: the Mayor led and won a campaign to pass the boldest local infrastructure initiative in American history, funding a once-in-a-generation expansion of public transportation. He launched the L.A. College Promise, the most ambitious higher education access program in the nation — serving more than 4,000 students, many of whom are overcoming poverty and are the first in their families to pursue the dream of higher education. He is confronting a homelessness crisis by leading an unprecedented regional alliance committed to getting people off the streets and ending chronic homelessness. He put more money in workers’ pockets by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and cut business taxes to help drive a historic economic recovery that has created a record number of jobs in legacy industries like entertainment and aerospace. And in 2018, he formed a historic partnership with the philanthropic sector to refurbish nearly 350 athletic courts across the city — to support his plan for universal sports and fitness programs that are both free and local for all children in Los Angeles.

The Mayor’s leadership is making an extraordinary impact on the national and international stages: he rallied more than 400 mayors in cities across America to adopt the Paris Climate agreement after the Trump Administration pulled out of the pact. He led the first National Day of Action on Immigration, and has put unprecedented local resources toward providing Dreamers and others with legal aid to fight deportation. He signed America’s strongest earthquake retrofit law to protect thousands of people’s lives from natural disaster. And he successfully led the bid to bring the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games to the United States for the first time in more than 30 years. He has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and was the first Mayor in the United States to appoint a Deputy Mayor for International Affairs to coordinate trade policy and attract new opportunities for global investment.

While Mayor Garcetti has taken on these enormous challenges, he has also reimagined how city government delivers the most basic services. Since July 2013, L.A. has paved 10,754 miles of road; cut the average pothole repair time by half; implemented a $1.4 billion plan to repair every sidewalk in every community, and greatly expanded the number of trees in neighborhoods across the city. He created Clean Streets L.A. — a block-by-block assessment of 9,100 miles of streets that identifies neighborhoods with the most needs, and prioritizes delivery of resources. Under his leadership, L.A. has been rated the nation’s best-run city by the Bloomberg What Works Cities initiative and become the number-one solar energy city in America.

The Mayor’s government service began on the L.A. City Council, where he spent four terms as Council President before being elected Mayor in 2013 and winning re-election in 2017 by the widest margin in the history of Los Angeles.
Beyond his time at City Hall, Mayor Garcetti has served his country as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, and taught at the University of Southern California and Occidental College.

The Mayor received his B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University, and studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and later at the London School of Economics. He is also a jazz pianist and photographer.

He and his wife, First Lady Amy Elaine Wakeland, are the proud parents of a daughter, Maya, and have been foster parents for more than a decade.

Bobby Bose

Bobby Bose is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ezetap Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Ezetap is India’s leading universal payments platform for merchants. Ezetap was founded in Bangalore, India by Silicon Valley veterans in 2011. Through a single integration, merchants can support any digital transaction ranging from physical cards to online payments to wallets to one-click payments from consumer mobile applications. Ezetap specializes in seamlessly integrating all of these payments options into any business software, form factor, or transaction flow that merchants want to use. Ezetap has operations in India, Middle East and South East Asia. Ezetap has been at the forefront of transforming payments globally from a processing-driven to a software-driven business model. The company has raised more than $51 million in funding and its investors include Social Capital, the Silicon Valley firm led by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, Helion Advisors, American Express, Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures, JS Capital (Jonathan Soros), Prime Venture Partners, and Capricorn Ventures (Jeff Skoll Group). Ezetap has been named on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list in 2016 and 2017. Ezetap was also on the CB Insights 2017 list of the top 250 Fintech companies in the world. Bobby has a BS in Engineering from Cornell University and MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mark Duplass

Mark Duplass is an award-winning actor, filmmaker and producer. He and his brother Jay first gained recognition in the early 2000′s for writing, directing and producing several acclaimed independent and studio films, including The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus, and Jeff, Who Lives at Home. On the television side, Mark and Jay have created two critically acclaimed television series for HBO: Togetherness (in which Mark also starred) and the anthology series Room 104.

Notable producer credits include the the Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country and the HBO animated series Animals, as well as the feature films Safety Not Guaranteed (in which Mark also starred), The Skeleton Twins, and Tangerine.

As an actor, Mark has appeared in a wide range of film and television projects. From 2009 to 2015, he was a series regular on the hit FX comedy series The League. He has also had recurring roles in Hulu’s The Mindy Project, National Geographic’s Manhunt, and the upcoming season of Amazon Studios’ Goliath. Notable on-screen feature film credits include: Tully, Blue Jay, The One I Love, Safety Not Guaranteed, Your Sister’s Sister, and Humpday.

In May 2018, Mark and Jay published their first book, LIKE BROTHERS (via Ballantine Books), which examines their lifelong personal and professional partnership.

Maria Molland Selby is the CEO of Thinx, the feminine hygiene company behind the eponymous leak-proof underwear brand. Maria has over 22 years of experience in the development and management of marketplace, e-commerce, digital media, and technology businesses. She brings broad, international experience and experience scaling different sized companies, from small teams to hundreds of people.

In past roles, Maria was an advisor to eBay’s CEO as well as Chief European Officer at Fab.com. Prior to Fab, Maria held global executive roles at corporations like Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones, Yahoo, and Disney. Maria received her BA in Economics, Phi Beta Kappa, from Northwestern University and her MBA from Harvard Business School.

AGENDA

2:00pm

Welcome and Registration

3:05pm

Defining Disruption: Breakthrough Technology, Fast Growth, Laser Focus

The CNBC Disruptor 50 List is all about identifying companies turning breakthrough technology into sustainable business models, built for the long-term. Disruptor 50 CEOs share how they’ve navigated their companies’ transitions from rebellious startup to disciplined company, without losing sight of their core mission or slowing their growth.

Abhijit (Bobby) Bose, Founder and CEO, Ezetap; CNBC Disruptor 50 company (2017, 2016)

Rodney Williams, Founder and CEO, LISNR; CNBC Disruptor 50 company (2016, 2015)

Interviewer: Julia Boorstin, Senior Media & Entertainment Correspondent, CNBC

3:30pm

Reimagining the Customer Experience: Two LA Startups on Building Brands that Connect

Some of the most successful companies to emerge from Los Angeles’ flourishing startup scene – like past Disruptors Snap and Dollar Shave Club – have engineered success by rethinking popular products and services and how consumers use them. These two companies are no different – Ritual is making women’s vitamins with better ingredients and literal transparency, while Laurel & Wolf is rethinking the way people collaborate with professional designers to bring their remodeling dreams to life. The founders join us to discuss how their companies are building brands with staying power, and the opportunities that exist for other startups in the region and beyond.

Leura Fine, Founder and CEO, Lauren & Wolf

Katerina Schneider, Founder and CEO, Ritual

Interviewer: Julia Boorstin, Senior Media & Entertainment Correspondent, CNBC

3:55pm

Hollywood in the Age of Netflix: Mark Duplass on Collaboration, Creativity, and Disruption

Mark Duplass’ first hit film had a budget of just $15,000. Today, he’s working on multi-million dollar projects, but he hasn’t lost sight of the “work with what you have” philosophy that’s gotten him here. He’ll discuss his new book “Like Brothers,” co-authored with his brother Jay, about how the Duplass brothers paved their own way to become two of the most influential people in Hollywood, thanks to a unique and disruptive brand of collaboration and creativity.

4:45pm

Founded to Funded: The Venture Capitalists' View

Dana Settle and Mark Suster are two of LA’s most respected and influential venture capitalists. Settle’s Greycroft has invested in names like Venmo, The Huffington Post, and Trunk Club, while Suster’s Upfront Ventures counts Ulta Beauty and TrueCar among its biggest exits. Both also have CNBC Disruptor 50 companies in their portfolios. Suster and Settle will bring us their take on the state of capital flow to entrepreneurs locally and nationally, and share what they value most in a pitch.

Dana Settle, Co-founder and Partner, Greycroft; 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 company investor

Mark Suster, Managing Partner, Upfront Ventures; 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 company investor

5:05pm

The Entrepreneur's Mayor: A Conversation with Eric Garcetti

LA’s self-proclaimed “first high-tech mayor” has been a champion for Los Angeles-based small businesses and startups since he took office 5 years ago. Under Garcetti’s leadership, the city has launched several programs to support its startup ecosystem, including the Entrepreneurs in Residence program, that aims to connect high-flying founders with area business leaders. We’ll hear what’s worked, what he’s learned and what to expect in years to come…

5:35pm

Cocktail Reception

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