2021 Tech Titans: The Cybersecurity Specialists

An Open Letter to the Secretary of Defense Nominee

Gilman Louie has over 30 years of national security and investment experience. He served as an early CEO of In-Q-Tel—the pioneering technology investment firm funded by the CIA—from 1999-2006, as an expert to the Defense Innovation Board from 2016-2020, and as a Commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence from 2018-2021.

In addition to being a co-founder and partner at Alsop Louie Partners, he is also a co-founder and CEO of the America’s Frontier Fund. Gilman is currently the Chairman of the National Intelligence University and Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists. He serves on numerous commercial and advisory boards, including Maxar Technologies, Niantic, and Aerospike. He is a former member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, and of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and has also served as a member of the Technology Advisory Group to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Gilman is the recipient of the CIA Agency Seal Medallion (2004), CIA Director’s Award (2006), Agency Seal Medallion (2006), and Director of National Intelligence Medallion (2008). Gilman received his B.S. in Business Administration from San Francisco State University where he graduated magna cum laude.

Gilman Louie

Partner

Nancy Lee is our Chief Financial Officer and a Partner. She is a veteran bean counter for venture capital firms, having spent 20 years with Walden International, a firm with a long and distinguished history and multiple funds in North America and Asia. Her job is to keep Gilman and Stewart out of trouble and help our investors make the most of their investment.

Nancy Lee

CFO and Partner

Stewart is a Partner. He spent the first 20 years of his professional career as a business journalist and commentator. It did not start well: he earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1975, but had to stay the summer to complete his credits. Then he couldn’t find a job, so he went to bartending school. But bars weren’t hiring. He persisted and, from 1975 to 1996, had a series of jobs in which he learned how to be a business editor. This included becoming Executive Editor of Inc. Magazine, where he became fascinated by both entrepreneurship and personal computers, and as the third editor of InfoWorld, the job that got him moved from Boston to Silicon Valley in 1983.

In 1985, having been fired from two jobs, he started his own business, a newsletter called P.C. Letter, which became widely read in the executive ranks of the major hardware and software companies that formed and grew the personal computer industry. He also started two conferences, Agenda and Demo, and published the “Social Register to the PC Industry.”

In 1996, Stewart changed careers to become a venture capitalist, joining New Enterprise Associates, a top-tier venture capital firm with a long track record of success in investing in early stage and growth companies. He was a general partner with New Enterprise Associates and led that firm’s investments in companies such as TiVo, Portola Communications (sold to Netscape), Netcentives, Glu Mobile, and Xfire. From 1996 to 2003, he wrote Alsop On InfoTech for Fortune.

Stewart left NEA in 2005 and invited Gilman Louie to become his partner in a new venture capital firm designed to put to use everything the partners had learned about entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation over the prior 25 years. From 2005-2013, Stewart was a member of the board of directors of Sonos, Inc., which has become a thought leader in the world of digital audio and the digital living room.

Stewart Alsop

Jim Whims is a Partner. For the last decade, Jim was a  cofounding general partner of Techfund Capital U.S. I and II and  Techfund Capital Europe, where he invested in companies like 3DFX, the  first high end 3D graphics chip company, and Portal Player, the original  chip set software and firmware solution for the Apple iPod.

Prior to that he co-founded Worlds of Wonder, which launched Teddy  Ruxpin, Lazer Tag, and Nintendo in the U.S. In 1990 he helped lead the  turnaround team at Software Toolworks, which resulted in a $462M cash  sale to Pearson, LTD.

In 1996, he led the initial launch of the Sony PlayStation, which  garnered him the Adweek/Brandweek Marketing Executive of the Year Award  for driving revenues from zero to $1B in the first seven months.

Jim also serves on the Board of Directors of Synaptics and Cokem,  Inc. He received a BS from Northwestern University, where he played both  football and hockey.

Jim Whims

Bellarmine Jesuit College Preparatory School

I started my investing career at In-Q-Tel in October of 2001 as an investment partner.  While there, I led investments in ArcSight, Language Weaver, GATR, and ThinKom among others.   I then joined Alsop Louie Partners, where I was nicknamed “the mechanic” by colleagues as I am often charged with helping companies when they face difficulties, and regularly manage companies to positive exits. I have specialized in cybersecurity, defense, infrastructure, and enterprise SaaS systems investments.  I was the original investor in Aerospike, and currently leading investments in Crunchy Data, Hidden Level, and Runsafe Security, among others.

I started my career writing systems-level code. Soon after, I moved to more customer-facing roles.  I supported customers and the sales process as a Systems Engineer at Hewlett-Packard.  I enjoyed the being directly responsible for revenue generation and moved to sales.  Having learned the ropes and wanting to make a bigger contribution, I decided to move to a start-up, joining Integrated Systems in 1986.  In a short time, I was managing company revenue both nationally and internationally. My contributions led to the IPO of Integrated Systems (NASDAQ: INTS). I then became CEO of TakeFive Software, a software tools company based in Salzburg, Austria. I returned to INTS, holding a variety of roles including CEO. In 1998, the company merged with Wind River Systems, and I moved to Talarian, which went public in 2000 (NASDAQ:TALR) and was later acquired by Tibco Systems.

Joe Addiego

William P. Crowell is a Partner and independent consultant specializing in information technology, security, and intelligence systems.

Until its acquisition by Cisco in June 2007, he was Chairman of Broadware Technologies, a video surveillance software company. He was also a director at ArcSight, Inc., which was acquired by HP in 2010; Narus, Inc., which was acquired by Boeing in 2010; Six3 Systems, which was acquired by CACI in 2013, Air Patrol, wireless network security company acquired by Sysorex in 2014, and Fixmo, Inc., a mobile device security company acquired by Good Technologies in 2014. He was also a director at SafeNet, Inc., an encryption, data protection, and authentication solutions company, which was acquired by Gemalto in 2015. He also served as a Director on the boards of Proximex and the SAP NS2 Proxy board.

Crowell served as President and CEO of Cylink Corporation, a public company and leading provider of e-business security solutions, from 1998 to 2003, when Cylink was acquired by SafeNet, Inc.

Crowell came to Cylink from the National Security Agency, where he held a series of senior positions in operations, analysis, strategic planning, research and development, and finance. He served as Deputy Director of Operations from 1991 to 1994, running its core signals intelligence mission. In February 1994 he was appointed by President Clinton as the Deputy Director of NSA, and served in that post until his retirement in September 1997. From 1989 to 1990, Crowell served as vice president at Atlantic Aerospace Electronics Corporation (later acquired by Titan Corp), leading business development in space technology, signal processing, and intelligence systems. In April 1999, Crowell was appointed to the President’s Export Council (PEC), which advised the administration on trade and export policy.

After 9/11 he served on the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, which published three landmark studies on Homeland Security and information sharing. He has also served on numerous panels to investigate and improve military command and control, intelligence, and security systems, and served as Chairman of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Senior Advisory Group from 2007 – 2014. He currently serves on the Board of the Open Source Election Technology Institute and the Advisory Board of the Entanglement Institute (quantum science research).

Crowell is an expert on network and information security issues. In December 2008 Security Magazine selected him as one of the 25 Most Influential People in the Security Industry. In May 2007 he co-authored the book, “Physical and Logical Security Convergence,” published by Elsevier. He has been quoted in many trade and business publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USA Today, Information Week, Network World, Computer World, Federal Computer Week, CIO Magazine and the San Jose Mercury News. Crowell has also appeared on CBS MarketWatch, CNET News, CNBC, and The Charlie Rose Show. He was the technical advisor to the TV series, “Threat Matrix” during its run on ABC in the 2003 season.

Bill Crowell

Open Source Election Technology Institute Board

Co-author of “Physical and Logical Security Convergence”

“I literally started my career in the basement of a bank processing checks on an NCR machine.”  Learning businesses from the bottom up is a keystone of Mark’s professional journey.  From his training years at Union Bank and pioneering time with TD Securities in the technology and communications sector, through the launch of Ernst & Young’s Capital Services Group and CME Group’s IPO, Fields was always at the frontier of his organizations’ efforts to achieve long-term strategic goals.  Just prior to joining ALP, Mark was CEO of Wickr Inc., a secure messaging and communications platform where he refocused the business from a consumer-targeted messaging platform into an enterprise-worthy secure collaboration platform.  Prior to Wickr, Fields spent 15 years at CME Group as a leader in corporate finance running M&A, business, and strategy development teams. CME executed over $20Bn in M&A transactions during his tenure.  Fields led the team that established the cleared interest rate swap product line which at CME which has cleared $ trillions of trades as a central counterparty.  Fields conceived, founded, and was appointed the Managing Director of CME Ventures, the company’s corporate venture capital group.  Fields headed the investment committee and led the investment team which made minority investments in emerging technology companies in cybersecurity, settlement & payment, computational, AI, and big data software tools. In 2015, Fields was recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business Tech 50.  Fields holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.  Fields currently serves as a board member at ALP portfolio companies Baton Systems, Ion Storage Systems, Ascent Technologies, and as an observer at Nabaco, Inc.  Between 2011 and 2021, Fields served on the Board of Trustees at Dominican University, and as a Senior Advisor to Dominican’s Brennan Business School.  Fields also served as an establishing member of the Board of Black Tech Mecca.

Mark Fields

Remedy is a Khosla-backed teledoc with A.I. capabilities for the uninsured

How to Pick a Healthcare Plan for Your Startup

Will Jack is a Venture Partner. He is CEO of Remedy Health, a  telehealth company that amplifies doctors’ abilities with AI, making  primary care more accessible and less expensive for patients.  Prior to  this Will worked on SpaceX’s internet satellite project, and studied  physics and computer science at MIT. He also actively works as an data  analytics consultant, engaging entities ranging from Fortune 500  companies to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Will’s early career was in plasma physics, culminating in working on  the lithium tokamak experiment at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab.  An  Ohio native, Will spent his childhood developing a particle collider in  his basement, using the nuclear reactions it carried out to investigate  novel methods of medical imaging, and speaking about it internationally.  Will’s other experiences include running hackathons at MIT, working  briefly as a high frequency trader, and developing medical devices at  the MIT media lab.

Will’s investment interests include companies developing hard tech,  especially in spaceflight, imaging, neuroscience, as well as companies  applying cutting edge technology to highly outdated industries.

Will Jack

Jason Preston is a Partner. He is the  co-founder of a conference and community called Dent, and for a time  ran a consultancy that helped companies build great teams. Like most who  find themselves doing interesting things, it is difficult for Jason to  explain how he wound up doing them. 

Jason was born in Texas but grew up  in Bellevue, Washington. After attending Occidental College in Los  Angeles, Jason moved to Seattle and began working on one of the first  conferences about business blogging. From there, he followed his nose:  he met Matt Mullenweg and learned the ins and outs of WordPress (when  MovableType was the thing), he worked with the early team at Twitter to  build the world’s first Twitter conference, and helped connect Hollywood  to Silicon Valley through a series of hospitality suites.  

Throughout this process, Jason  started to wonder at the difference between leaders that saw  extraordinary success and those that merely did OK. Why did some people  and some teams “dent the universe” — as Steve Jobs once said? 

This question led Jason to co-found  the Dent Conference with Steve Broback. The conference finds actionable  lessons from success and creates an environment for people to meet each  other and build friendships. Dent draws a remarkable set of  participants: astronauts, artists whose medium is genetically engineered  plants, technology CEOs, magicians, young entrepreneurs, world champion  free divers, and consulting detectives. OK — just one consulting  detective. 

Members of the Dent community began  asking Jason for advice, so he decided to share the lessons from years  of interviews, pattern-matching, and practice. As a consultant, he  helped companies and teams make foundational decisions about their  culture and smart strategic decisions about their products and their  stories. 

Jason is also a part-time lecturer in  the Human Centered Design and Engineering department at the University  of Washington. He reads a lot of books, is a fan of esports, and is the  dungeon master in his local D&D game.

Jason Preston

Jim Ward is a Venture Partner. Working with the general partners on strategic development of ALP investment strategies and building the ALP brand, Ward also has been involved with Alsop Louie’s portfolio companies including Gowalla, Framehawk, Next Big Sound, Zephyr, Niantic, Meow Wolf, Mixed Dimensions, Blok Party and Ursa Major. He is also CEO of newco Integral Reality Labs, a company established to capture existing and emerging trends in the physical/digital divide, technological divergence, NFT’s, metadata, 3D printing and the evolution of gaming. 

Ward previously served as the co-CEO of Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe-based arts and entertainment group that creates immersive, interactive experiences to transport audiences of all ages into fantastic realms of story and exploration. In addition to the strategic management of the company overall, he was responsible for all content generated across the Meow Wolf story universe including transmedia properties, merchandising and marketing activities as well as managing the Interactive Technology and IS/IT division of the company. 

Prior to joining Alsop Louie, Ward spent over a decade as President of LucasArts and Sr. Vice President of Lucasfilm, Ltd. where he was responsible for the global business growth of the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" franchises across the motion picture, television, home video and video game revenue streams. Ward’s thirty-year business career began in advertising with Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York, then as Senior Vice President and General Manager of BBDO/Los Angeles and onto Worldwide Account Director for Wieden and Kennedy in Portland, Oregon. As an advertising executive, Ward was involved in many major global product introductions including Apple Computer’s original PowerBook, Microsoft’s Windows ’95 with the Rolling Stones and Nike’s introduction of Tiger Woods. 

Having multiple Emmy Award nominations and an Emmy win as an Executive Producer, Ward is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, served as Chairman of the Entertainment Software Association in 2007, and was Chairman of the Creative Committee for the 2016 San Francisco Olympic Bid Committee. In addition, he has been recognized as one of Advertising Age’s Top 100 Marketers, was EPM’s Entertainment Marketer of the Year, was an advisor to ASU’s SkySong Center for Innovation, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Hanover College. 

He also ran for Congress in Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District during the 2010 cycle and was recognized in 2017 as Executive of the Year by The Phoenix Business Journal in addition to receiving the Industry Leader of Arizona Award from AZ Big Media. Ward was a Governor appointed member of the Arizona Zanjeros State CEO Leadership Team, a Secretary of State appointed member of the Technology, Transparency and Commerce Council, served on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Media Association and a negotiating team member, a member of Thunderbird’s Global Council, and a Board member of The Downtown Phoenix Partnership. 

A native of Rockford, Ill., Ward received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Hanover College and a Master of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. 

Jim Ward

Joseph Alsop is a Venture Partner. He was the founder and until 2009 the CEO of Progress Software Inc., a public company (PRGS) which supplies application infrastructure technology, including application development tools and the world’s leading imbedded database. He graduated from MIT in 1967 with a BSEE degree. He invests in and consults to companies in the northeast applying information technology in various areas.

Joe Alsop

Venture Partner

John Dillon is currently the board chairman for Aerospike after serving  as its CEO from 2015 through 2021.  He has more than 30 years of  experience building high-growth technology companies.  Previously, John  held CEO roles at Hyperion Solutions, Salesforce.com, Navis and Engine  Yard.  He began his technology career as a Systems Engineer for  Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and then held increasingly senior roles in  sales management including positions at Oracle as the company grew from  $100 million to over $1 billion in annual revenues. He has served as a  board director on a number of both public and private companies.  John  holds a BS in Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and an  MBA from Golden Gate University.

John Dillon

Why Self Driving Cars Shouldn't Be Too Autonomous - Stanford Engineering News

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Ernestine Fu Mak is a Venture Partner at Alsop Louie Partners, where she has guided founders as they navigate the journey to product-market fit and scale their businesses and teams. To develop an investment thesis on commercializing university research, she led the firm’s campus associate program, recruiting talent from institutions such as UC Berkeley and UT Austin. She served as Executive Chairman of portfolio company Gfycat, where she led strategic decisions from its incorporation and growth to 200 million monthly active users through its acquisition by Snap.

Alongside her role at Alsop Louie Partners, she is the Founder and Managing Partner of Brave Capital. Over the past decade, she has worked across the startup ecosystem—negotiating mergers and acquisitions, organizing SPVs for later-stage companies, angel investing in and advising startups that have since been acquired, and advising banks on venture debt. She was recognized on the inaugural Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 list, Vanity Fair Next Establishment list, and Business Insider Silicon Valley 100 list.

Combining a business background with engineering research and a focus on emerging technologies, Ernestine has authored numerous publications on topics ranging from autonomous vehicles to renewable energy. A champion of connected cars and smart cities, she programmed a full-vehicle driving simulator at Stanford University’s Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab. She later published award-winning research on human operator and autonomous vehicle interactions in top-ranked ACM and IEEE conferences. To address pressing environmental challenges, she led research on renewable energy, co-authoring Renewed Energy with energy economist John Weyant. Ernestine has also studied how frontier technologies such as additive manufacturing and 5G will shape the next economy. She is an inventor on numerous technology patents.

Participating as active citizens in our democracy is a core value that Ernestine promotes. She co-authored Civic Work, Civic Lessons with former Stanford Law School Dean Thomas Ehrlich to encourage community engagement with informed moral and civic judgment. The two have published several articles on political engagement and higher education. She has served as a board director and advisor to nonprofits such as the Ad Council, California 100, and the Presidio Institute.

She completed her B.S., M.S., MBA, and Ph.D. at Stanford University. Graduating with Tau Beta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa honors, she received the Kennedy Prize for the top undergraduate thesis in engineering and the Terman Award as one of the top thirty graduating seniors in engineering. She teaches courses on emerging technology and venture capital as a lecturer at Stanford.

She is a Kauffman Fellow and Eisenhower Fellow.

Ernestine Fu Mak

Sierra Lee is a Campus Associate attending the University of  Washington. She will graduate in 2024 with her undergraduate degree in  computer science. Her love for startups began after she completed  software development internships with two early-stage startups the  summer before her freshman year of college: one for a “blind dating” app  startup and one for a home management app startup. She most enjoyed  getting to wear many hats during these internships – not only was she  developing the software to power the products behind these startups, she  would also occasionally act as a designer and review the pitch decks  her teams would make for angel investors.

Since entering college, she has continued to explore tech  entrepreneurship by co-founding the University of Washington’s first  student-run startup incubator: DubHacks Next. Through DubHacks Next, she  has worked with various early-stage UW startups, connecting them with  valuable resources, providing ad-hoc advising, and helping them pitch to  Seattle incubators. Her motivation to help create DubHacks Next came  from a desire to jumpstart the Seattle startup ecosystem after observing  a general lack of interest in startups at the UW.

Sierra has always enjoyed giving back to her community. In high  school, she worked with her city council to lead a mental health  initiative and also worked on committees to highlight local art and help  her city’s Special Olympics chapter. She also started her city’s local  chapter of Cyber Seniors – a program connecting senior citizens with  high school students through technology. She is now currently involved  with Generation She, a nonprofit organization encouraging young women  into entrepreneurship, and serves on the UW Computer Science  Department’s Student Advisory Council, primarily working to increase  research accessibility at her university.

Technically, Sierra has a strong background in machine learning,  after completing an internship with Microsoft’s AI Platform team during  her junior year of high school, doing some machine learning work for a  startup, and continuing to do independent research on the intersection  between machine learning and art generation specifically. She has more  recently begun exploring full stack development and cloud networking,  which perfectly align with her most recent internship with VMware’s  VeloCloud Orchestrator team.

For fun, Sierra enjoys learning about other cultures, from trying  traditional foods to learning new languages to traveling the world. She  is also a huge boba fanatic and enjoys reading and writing poetry.

Sierra Lee

Campus Associate

Tom Kalinske is a Venture Partner. He was the Chairman of Global  Education Learning, a start-up dedicated to helping young children in  China learn various subjects, and headed the Audit Committee at Cambium  Learning Group. He also serves on the boards of Stitched Insights,  Adjunct Professor Link, Teach the World Foundation, and the  University  of Wisconsin School of Business.

He was previously CEO and/or Chairman of LeapFrog at different times  starting in 1997, helping LeapFrog grow from a start-up specialty toy  company to the largest educational toy company in the world.

Tom has had a long career in the toy and game industry, as well as in  educational toys and activities. He has held leadership roles at  Mattel, Sega of America, Universal Matchbox Group and LeapFrog, among  others.

The 2014 book, Console Wars, chronicled Tom’s strategies and fight  against Nintendo. It has been made into a documentary film, released on  CBS Prime , as well as Paramount Prime and became the 3rd most watched  film on Paramount prime. Tom was inducted into the International Video  Game Hall of fame in March 2022.

Tom joined Knowledge Universe (KU) at its founding in 1996 as its  President and on its Board of Directors. From 1990 to 1996, Tom was  president and CEO of Sega of America, Inc. From 1987 to 1990, Tom was  President and CEO of Universal Matchbox Group. Previously, Tom was  President and co-CEO of Mattel, where he worked on Barbie & Hot  Wheels in addition to other business lines. He was inducted into the Toy  Industry Hall of Fame in 1997, joining the founders of Mattel, Hasbro,  Lego, Walt Disney, George Lucas, Jim Henson and others.

Tom is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. He served in the  U.S. Army. He earned an MBA from the University of Arizona, and attended  the Harvard Business School’s Strategic Management Program. He is  married with six children.

Tom Kalinske

Parker Ruth is a Venture Associate. He is currently a doctoral  student at Stanford University studying the intersection of computing  and biomedical technologies. Parker’s research includes mobile health  systems, emerging wearable devices, and global health. He is a recipient  of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and a Tau Beta Pi  Fellowship.

In 2021, Parker obtained dual bachelors degrees in computer  engineering and bioengineering from the University of Washington. He  graduated summa cum laude and was awarded a Dean’s Medal, the  highest honor in the College of Engineering. As a member of the  Ubiquitous Computing research lab in the Paul G. Allen School for  Computer Science and Engineering, Parker researched applications of  computing tools to improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare.  There, he developed experience in biosignal processing, embedded  systems, machine learning, circuit design, and fabrication.

After first getting a taste for research in a synthetic biology lab,  Parker supported a global health initiative by building an automated  system for interpreting rapid diagnostic tests for HIV drug resistance  testing, which has been used to process patient specimens from five  countries. He then focused on repurposing the sensors and actuators in  ubiquitous smart devices to perform health sensing, including detecting  cardiovascular disease risk factors, screening for osteoporosis, and  quantifying physical activity. Parker then went on to build a wearable  system for measuring non-invasive photoplethysmography signals to  perform continuous cardiac monitoring. Working closely with clinical  collaborators from the University of Washington Medical Center, Parker  responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by prototyping technologies to  support environmental viral monitoring, post-COVID-19 patient  rehabilitation, and more effective telemedicine interactions.

To share his passion for research with others, Parker founded an  initiative called BioExplore that encourages students to connect with  research opportunities in the biosciences. He also directly mentors  undergraduate and high school students on their research. For his  research and service at the University of Washington, Parker was  recognized by campus and national awards from the Barry Goldwater  Foundation, the Washington Research Foundation, the Levinson Emerging  Scholars Program, the Computing Research Association, and the Mary Gates  Endowment for Students.

Outside of his research, Parker enjoys composing and arranging music,  learning languages, and juggling. He also holds a 2nd degree black belt  in Tae Kwon Do.

Parker Ruth

Venture Associate

Shiaoching Tse, otherwise known as Ching, is a Venture Partner. She studied Physics at MIT, from which she graduated in 2020.

If you could sum up who Ching is, it  will go something like this: “Driven by moonshots. Excited by tipping  points. Here to work on technologies that will fundamentally change our  most fundamental industries.”

Ching was the first hire at MIT-spinout nuclear fusion company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems  (CFS), which is slated to become the first company to achieve  net-energy fusion by using revolutionary superconducting magnets. At  CFS, she has used both her business and scientific acumen to develop the  company’s supply chain and QA/QC systems for the high temperature  superconductors. She now leads the company’s commercial fusion power  plant development efforts to “get fusion ready for the world and get the  world ready for fusion”. 

Alongside her efforts in the fusion  industry to mitigate existential risk, Ching is a Partner at FT Energy  Partners, a company that is dedicated to building transformative next  generation energy infrastructure. She is currently managing a multi-year  project worth more than $1-2B in an emerging country.

Before energy, Ching’s focus was on  food, food security, and high-tech farming. Her mission was to make sure  that every human had the access and opportunity to fresh and  nutritional foods. After battling an eating disorder, she founded a  501c3 nonprofit, The Food Ark,  at the age of 14. Their goal was to holistically fight food insecurity  while empowering youth to become leaders and change-makers. Over just  two years the nonprofit grew to more than 400 students, and quickly  spread across states and into more than 10 schools. The Food Ark is  still growing.

Ching has more than 5 years of wet lab chemistry research and has published articles in Polymer Chemistry and Food Science.

She is also an internationally ranked fencer, who has represented the US on its national team.

Our Team