Launchpad Team

  • Raza Shaikh is an active angel investor in early stage companies in New England area and has been investing with Launchpad since 2016. He co-manages The Beacon Venture Partners Fund, which invests in a diversified basket of local early stage companies including the Launchpad portfolio. He mentors and advises several Boston-based companies.

    Raza co-founded NorthBay which is one of the largest independent Amazon AWS partners helping large enterprises with their transition to the cloud and the new world of AI and ML. He built Kendall Square Labs in the early days of casual mobile gaming and mobility.

    Previously, Raza was part of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard building large-scale science platform for small molecule synthesis and high-throughput screening. Before that Raza was early start-up employee at Formulatrix building software and robotics for drug discovery applications.

    Raza did technology consulting in a number of areas and industries including telecommunications CRM, facial recognition, financial services, IT governance and healthcare.

    Raza earned a B.S. in Computer Science from National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences in Pakistan and came to America on an H1-B lottery.

  • Ian Levine has been at the ground floor of several SaaS start-ups, including founding, scaling and exiting several of his own ideas. He has been an active Angel investor for over 15 years, and has personally syndicated numerous equity raises. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of several Boston based start-ups including: AI Lean, Latitude Beverage Company and Zipper Agent. Previous Board positions have included: RO Innovation, Sales Management Association and Vizibility.

    Ian has decades of experience in executive roles, scaling and optimizing Mid-Sized and Fortune 500 companies. He spent the majority of his career in the Governance, Risk Management and Compliance industry working for firms such as Bowne, Merrill Corporation and Iron Mountain.

    Ian’s roles were diverse, but included Sales, Marketing, Sales Operations, Operational Management and Corporate M&A.

    Throughout his career he spent significant time on growth strategies and execution. Ian became a regular panelist and speaker at national events focused on Sales Enablement & Sales Effectiveness.

    Ian is a graduate of the Questrom School of Business at Boston University.

  • Jodi Collier is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations around deal flow, membership and events at Launchpad.

    Prior to joining Launchpad, Jodi held various leadership positions at EF Education and Champion International Paper Company, primarily focusing on operations, marketing and sales.

    Jodi graduated from Emory College with a degree in political science and earned her M.B.A. from the College of William and Mary. She serves on the board of the Majira Project and volunteers as a mentor at EForAll and The Capital Network.

  • Ginny Snow began her career in the Major Gifts department of the Harvard University Development Office. Following her development work, Ginny became interested in endowment financial management and moved to Cambridge Associates, LLC, an investment consulting firm that focuses on endowment management. Ginny has also been an active volunteer in numerous community committees, including the Wellesley Free Library Investment Committee, a parent school volunteer, and Head Agent for her business school class.

    Ginny graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, CT with a degree in American Studies and earned her M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Launchpad Board of Directors

  • Christopher Mirabile is a full-time angel and an active member of the Boston-area angel investing community with investments in more than 65 start-up companies. He was named one of XConomy's "Top Angel Investors in New England" for 2012.

    Christopher is the Chair Emeritus of the Angel Capital Association, an adjunct lecturer in the MBA program at Babson College, a regular advisor and mentor to start-ups, and a frequent panelist and speaker. He regularly publishes articles and eBooks on all aspects of early stage investing and has co-authored several books. Christopher is a member of the Board of Directors or Board of Advisors of numerous start-up companies as well as several non-profits. In addition to his role as a Co-Founder of Seraf, Christopher is a general partner and Managing Director of early stage funds Race Point Capital Fund I & II

    Christopher has served as a public company CFO with IONA Technologies PLC, a corporate and securities lawyer with Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault and as a management consultant with Price Waterhouse's Strategic Consulting Group.

  • Hambleton (Ham) Lord is an active member of the Boston entrepreneurial community and has built a personal portfolio of 50+ early stage investments.

    In the early part of his career, he was on the founding team of three software companies: MicroChem Technologies, Polygen and Advanced Visual Systems. In addition to his role as a Co-Founder of Seraf, Ham is a general partner and Managing Director of early stage fund Race Point Capital Fund II and a board member or board observer for Netra, Qstream, EveryScape and Repsly.

    Ham regularly publishes articles and eBooks on all aspects of early stage investing and has co-authored several books. Due to the combination of roles as an investor, advisor and angel group leader, Ham was named one of Xconomy's “Top Angel Investors in New England.”

  • Catherine Popper is an active Angel Investor and Advisor to early stage startups. She has a passion for supporting Women Entrepreneurial Founders through investing, advising and mentoring. She is a Mastermind/Mentor at the Babson College Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership. Catherine is also a Business Mentor for the EforAll Accelerator Program in Roxbury, a member of the Tufts President’s Council and the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center Advisory Board as well as a board member at Potencia, a non-profit organization that promotes adult learning for immigrants. She is currently an advisor and board observer for Zippity Cars, a Launchpad portfolio company.

    Catherine has a diverse background including senior leadership and executive roles in management consulting, supply chain, sales and client management, corporate finance and HR organizations. Over her 30 year career, she worked at large and small companies including Fidelity Investments, Mercer HR Consulting, Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), Towers Perrin and WFD Consulting.

    Catherine received her BS in math from Tufts University and her MBA at Boston University.

  • John Conley co-founded Gilliam Capital LLC, a life science investment firm based in Boston. He is a board member for three healthcare startups and works with a variety of social enterprises. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Entrepreneurship For All, a nonprofit that is accelerating economic and social impact through fostering entrepreneurship in mid-sized cities. He was a co-founder of the RNA interference therapeutics company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where he held the position of Vice President, Strategy and Finance and CFO through to its successful 2004 IPO. He was Vice President of Business Development at Transkaryotic Therapies through to its acquisition by Shire Pharmaceuticals. Over ten years at Biogen he served in several marketing, business development, sales and finance positions, including Country Manager - United Kingdom and Ireland, and Treasurer. He was a Manager at the strategy-consulting firm of Bain & Company.

    John graduated with a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He was a 2014 Fellow in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.

  • Christine Fuchs holds an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). She spent most of her career at Wellington Management as an equity analyst and portfolio manager, ultimately being responsible for $2.0 billion in sector fund assets (specialty: consumer staples globally). After a decade in that role, she became the Associate Director of Global Industry Research. In that capacity, she led a team of nearly 100 investment professionals and served on the firm’s management committees, including the Compensation Committee and the Equity Review Committee.

    At age 39, she retired from the investment management industry to found and successfully run her own company. In recent years, she has leveraged her expertise in analyzing companies to invest in start-ups. She has quickly emerged as an active member of the angel ecosystem in Boston.

  • Frank Apeseche is a veteran entrepreneur with broad experience building, leading and investing in successful enterprises. Over the past three decades he has served as Chief Executive Officer of two national corporations, Treasurer of two NYSE companies and a Board member of sixteen additional firms. His industry expertise includes private equity, venture capital and angel investments; healthcare services; mortgage finance; software technology services; and commercial real estate.

    Frank is currently Chairman of Amstar, an international real estate private equity firm. He is also an active investor in early stage growth companies in the life science, technology and clean tech industries. Previously he was Chief Executive Officer of The Berkshire Group. At Berkshire he helped launch and grow twelve nationally branded subsidiaries and led four of them to their initial public offering.

    Frank has been on the faculty of Harvard University since 2005 and Tufts University since 2012. His academic interests focus on innovation, strategy and capital formation and their influence on enterprise performance. He received his BA from Cornell University and his MBA from the University of Michigan.

  • Dan Powdermaker is a customer-focused leader who builds and leads sales, marketing, and business development organizations that have consistently won in the marketplace. He has developed high performance teams across multiple cultures and created substantial value in early-stage and mature companies. A founding executive at iBasis, a transformative internet-based telecom company, he grew the company to industry leadership with revenues over $1 billion. At Arbinet, he helped engineer the sale of the company after leading a restructuring effort. Dan is active as a mentor to new and emerging companies and as an advisor and consultant to established enterprises. His focus is on market entry, revenue generation, accelerating growth and performance improvement.

    Dan is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program and received a MBA and MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago.

  • Will Iselin has been an active Angel investor and advisor to early stage startups in both the US and UK for over 20 years. He has sat on the boards of numerous private companies and is currently Chairman of the Board of Sensor Coating Systems, a UK company that provides temperature measurement solutions for combustion engines and other harsh industrial applications. He is currently a Board Observer for Agile Devices and Jaia Robotics, both Lauchpad portfolio companies. He sits on the Board of The North Bennet Street School, as well as the school’s Finance and Investment Committees, and is on the Board of the Michael & Louisa von Clemm Foundation. Will is also a Business Mentor for the EforAll Accelerator Program in Worcester and has served as a squash coach at a local high school.

    Will started his career in corporate finance in NY and management consulting in Boston before moving to London in 1994, where he helped to start and build a corporate finance/M&A boutique focused on technology, media and telecoms companies, before founding Winghaven Partners, which focused on M&A and principal investing in 2003. He moved back to the Boston area and joined Launchpad in 2020.

    Will received his AB in Medieval History from Harvard College and has participated in executive education focused on entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics.