Kobie is a Co-Founder of Valence and a Partner at Upfront. He joined Upfront in June 2016 after having previously worked at Silicon Valley­ based Accel, where he led investments including UserTesting, Campaign Monitor, AdRoll, and Invoca (also an Upfront portfolio company). Prior to Accel, Kobie was the Chief Marketing Officer at REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e­commerce players based in Los Angeles.Kobie brings to Upfront expertise in SaaS businesses and marketing technologies. He has deep knowledge of emerging sectors including VR and AR and was an early personal investor in Oculus, later sold to Facebook for $2B. Earlier in his career, Kobie helped found OpenView Venture Partners and was an investor at Insight Venture Partners where he sourced notable early investments in Exact Target (acquired by Salesforce for $2.5B) and Instructure (NYSE: INST).Kobie graduated from Harvard University where he was captain of the track team and a multi Ivy league champion sprinter. He still remains the university's current record holder.

Meena Harris is one of the most powerful and dynamic young leaders in America. As thefounder of the groundbreaking Phenomenal brand, as well as an author, lawyer, andproducer, Meena is a respected entrepreneur and an influential voice for gender equity.Meena's legal expertise is in the areas of consumer protection, data privacy, andcybersecurity. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Meena released her latest book,Ambitious Girl, in January 2021. Meena has been featured in The New York Times, TheWashington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Adweek, and more. She is a graduate of StanfordUniversity and Harvard Law School, and currently resides in San Francisco with herpartner and two daughters.

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers every day.As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers and the workplace. He is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, "Ask HR."Mr. Taylor's career spans over 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit space. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/Interactive Corp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Entertainment Group, McGuireWoods LLC, and Compass Group USA. Most recently, Mr. Taylor was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.He was appointed chairman of the President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and served as a member of the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board during the Trump Administration. He is a Trustee of the University of Miami, Governor of the American Red Cross, and member of the corporate boards of Guild Education and iCIMS.In 2020, Mr. Taylor received the Distinguished Executive of the Year Award from the Academy of Management, and in 2021 was named Professional Society CEO of the Year by CEO Update.He is licensed to practice law in Florida, Illinois and Washington, D.C., and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. 

Brandon joined Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E) in October 2019. The organization’s portfolio spans the San Antonio Spurs (NBA), AT&T Center, Toyota Field, San Antonio FC (USL), and Austin Spurs (NBA G League). In his current role he leads the organization’s operations across ticketing, premium seating, sponsorship, marketing, content and distribution, as well as business communications.Prior to joining SS&E, Brandon spent six-plus years in multiple roles with Facebook. As director of global sports partnerships and solutions, his team was responsible for helping athletes and sports properties in North America create interactive content that achieved their business goals across all Facebook platforms -- including Instagram, Messenger and Oculus. In addition, his team was responsible for providing global operational support across premium content distribution, product education, and analytics. Prior to this role, Brandon led global sports partnerships at Instagram for two years, where he was responsible for helping athletes and sports properties leverage the platform to connect and engage with the next generation of sports fans. As recognition of his efforts in that role, he was named to Sports Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class of 2018 and the Leaders Under 40 Awards Class of 2017 by Leaders and Aspire Academy.Before arriving at Facebook, Brandon served as director of strategic partnerships at Groupon. Through Groupon’s joint venture with Live Nation Entertainment, he worked closely with sports and entertainment properties to develop and market compelling ticketed fan experience offers to Groupon’s subscriber base.Brandon also spent time in a strategy & finance role with the front office of the New York Jets and as a consultant at Bain & Company in their Chicago and Atlanta offices. While at the Jets, he helped overhaul the team’s annual strategic planning process, built MetLife Stadium’s suite pricing model, and helped plan the team’s relocation to their then new training facility in Florham Park, New Jersey. At Bain, he focused on strategy, performance improvement, and M&A projects across a variety of industries.Brandon currently serves on the board of directors of Zendesk Inc., as well as the Executive Committee of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. He holds a MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Harvard College. He and his wife, Saamra, have two sons, Myles and Cassius.

For the past 15 years Derek has been building communities. He is the co-founder/CEO of Bevy, a SaaS product that helps companies like Salesforce, Atlassian, Google, Snowflake, and Adobe build virtual and in-person communities. He co-founded Startup Grind, a community of 600 Chapters in 125 countries educating, inspiring, and connecting startup people. Since 2012 Startup Grind has hosted 10,000 events for more than 500,000 people. In 2010 he co-founded Commonred which was acquired by Income.com. Derek also previously worked as a product manager at Electronic Arts. He currently lives in Palo Alto CA with his wife and four children. 

Jacqueline Adams launched a second career as a communications strategist after more than two decades as an Emmy Award—winning CBS News correspondent. A natural "connector" and talented interviewer and moderator, she has demonstrated her ability to hear clients' strategic concerns and find creative solutions, often drawing on her wealth of contacts and experiences.Through her boutique consulting firm, J Adams: Strategic Communications, LLC, she has provided communications counsel to corporate and nonprofit clients.

Bonita C. Stewart brings extensive consumer technology and operational experience as her career spans over two decades of digital transformation across multiple industries. Since joining Google in 2006, she has risen to lead multi-billion-dollar operations and has driven the adoption of digital technologies within the US and Americas. Currently, she oversees the company’s Global Partnerships team for the largest US publishers across Search, Mobile Apps, Commerce, News, Broadcast, Telecommunications and Domains.Ms. Stewart was the first African American woman vice president at Google. Over the past several years, she has been recognized externally for her leadership as a Woman to Watch (Advertising Age, 2011), Power 100 (Ebony, 2012, 2019), Woman to Watch in Tech (Crain’s NY, 2014) and Most Powerful Women (Crain’s NYC, 2015, 2017, 2019). In 2017 she created the concept for Howard West, a technology immersion program for historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), powered by Google.In 2014 Ms. Stewart was nominated to the Deckers Brands corporate board [NYSE:DECK] and currently serves on the corporate governance and compensation committees. In 2021, she joined the PagerDuty corporate board [NYSE:PD]. She served on the Pluralsight board [NASDAQ:PS] from 2018-2021.Prior to Google, she served as Director, Chrysler Group Interactive Communications for DaimlerChrysler AG and spearheaded all digital efforts for Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep. During the Dot Com era, she was recruited back to DaimlerChrysler to lead Chrysler brand’s $400 million advertising and marketing operation. During her leadership tenure, Advertising Age named the Chrysler Group the 2005 Interactive Marketer of the Year, and she co-authored “The Fifth P of Marketing,” an article for CRM Magazine. During the first stint of her automotive career, Ms. Stewart led the brand development for future and existing Dodge passenger cars and minivans, representing an $8+ billion annual revenue target.In 2012 and 2013, she received award recognition from the Harvard Business School and Howard University, respectively, for alumni achievement. She has served on the following non-profit boards: Detroit Music Hall, Cranbrook Art Academy, Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Harvard Business School Club of New York City. Currently, she serves on the American Ballet Theatre Advisory Council for Project RISE and board member for the Women’s Forum of NY.Ms. Stewart spent her formative years in Denver, CO and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Howard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She resides in Englewood, NJ, with her husband, Kevin Stewart (HBS 1979).