Our Team and Advisors

Shane Bates is the Head of Finance at Next Ventures with over 12 years of experience in accounting and finance roles, specifically in the alternative investment industry. Prior to joining Next Ventures, Shane was a Vice President at Mainstream Fund Services where he was instrumental in the growth of their US private equity and venture capital business. He has extensive experience with end-to-end fund administration services and has worked with multiple industry-leading technology platforms and hundreds of alternative funds. Shane is a graduate of the University of Southern Indiana where he obtained both his bachelor’s degree in accounting and MBA.

Alexa is a successful high-tech executive having founded HireTECH, a recruiting and consulting company focused on high-tech start-ups as well as Recruiting Labs, a web-based recruiting venture. Following her successful entrepreneurial career, Alexa shifted her focus to politics and founded Be One Texas, and she proceeded to lead multiple organizations focused on activating civic engagement and driving voter empowerment and voter turn-out. Under President Obama Alexa was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and later as the U.S. Ambassador to Austria where she was awarded the “Grand Decoration in Gold with Sash” by the Austrian government ”, the highest decoration for services to the country a non-national can receive.

Alexa’s philanthropic passions and board seats have included organizations in the arts, homelessness, women in technology, film, girls and women’s empowerment, and under-served populations. She is currently on the board of the Salzburg Global Seminar, a think tank, and is working with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Alexa manages to find time to be an avid triathlete.

Billy is one of the founding family members of the Blue Buffalo Company, makers of the BLUE line of natural foods and treats for dogs and cats. While at Blue Buffalo, Billy served as CEO, President, and Chief Operating Officer, and helped build BLUE into the country’s largest natural pet food brand. In 2015, Billy helped take Blue Buffalo public, and in 2018 Blue Buffalo was acquired by General Mills.

Before BLUE, Billy helped start SoBe Beverages, a line of natural herbal-ized teas, juices and sports drinks. At SoBe, Billy was the VP of Marketing, where he led their grass roots marketing efforts that included sponsorships with the SoBe/Cannondale Headshok mountain bike racing team, mobile marketing events with Lizard vehicles, and a line of Lizard Gear merchandise. SoBe was acquired by PepsiCo in 2001.

Billy and his family were also involved with the start-up of Major League Lacrosse featuring the best field lacrosse players in the world; and were owners of the Long Island Lizards who won the inaugural Major League Lacrosse Championship in 2001.

Charles is Chairman of Teneo Sports. Prior to joining forces with the Teneo team, Charles spent 34 years with Nike Inc., retiring in January 2014 after serving as President of the Nike Brand for 13 years. At Nike Charles developed a deep expertise of the athletic consumer products industry, and he was instrumental in growing Nike to become one of the world’s biggest brands. During his tenure as Brand President, Charles helped grow Nike from $9.8 billion to more than $25 billion in global revenues. He has strong experience in advising athletes, corporations and organizations on effective and efficient strategic growth strategies.

Darren Phelan, MD is board certified Emergency physician, health tech investor, consultant, and lifelong athlete.

He developed and ran a medical practice in the heart of Silicon Valley with greater than 10 billion dollars in assets under management; where devices, technology, and patients interfaced for better results.

His extensive health and wellness experience helped develop and implement the integrated care models and platforms now used by companies including Facebook, Square, LinkedIn, Symantec, Intuit and Microsoft.

He currently sits on the board of Likemoji, the Customer Experience platform and remains active in patient care and healthcare delivery projects at AC Wellness (Apple Inc.) in Cupertino.

Darren continues to pursue his passion in Open water sports and Masters swimming. He holds National records in some of their most grueling events.

Dylan is a retired professional cyclist, who rode for The US Postal Service Cycling Team alongside Lance Armstrong. His 15 year professional athletic career included competing in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and success as a four-time national champion.

Today Dylan is the Chief Product Officer at Fair, a fintech platform that offers automotive customers a subscription payment service. His extensive innovation technology experience includes leading product management teams at Yahoo! Path and Google, where he was a founding member of the Google+ team focused on driving growth, engagement and personalization across Google and YouTube. Also, while at Google he built and launched the MyTracks Android app which was the #1 fitness and health app for 72 consecutive months and was made an official Google product.

Dylan is a member of the Product Council at Kleiner Perkins and an advisor to FishBrain and RewardStyle. He’s also a co-founder and board member at WEDU.

Elizabeth Weil is a technology investor, operating executive, startup advisor, and entrepreneur. Previously, she was a Managing Director at 137 Ventures and prior to that, a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Elizabeth was an early employee and executive at Twitter during the time it scaled from 50 to 3000 people. Elizabeth has invested in more than 40 companies across all stages, including Slack, Coinbase, Envoy, Branch Metrics, Birdeye, Brightwheel, Digits, and SpaceX.

Elizabeth graduated from Stanford University with a BA In Economics and a Masters in Engineering. In the years since, she has taught classes at Stanford in both the engineering department and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. She is a competitive ultra-marathon runner, a letterpress printer, Paper Wheel, and a mom to a LEGO-obsessed 5-year old and 3-year old boy/girl twins.

Michael had a very successful athletic career representing Canada internationally in the sport of decathlon, where he was a three-time Olympian as well as a World Championships and Commonwealth Games medalist. Over the span of his 13-year track and field career Michael had the opportunity to partner with many large domestic and international organizations, representing their brands on and off the competitive field.

Michael has spent more than 15 years in the capital markets and financial services industry with domestic and international experience working for public and privately held investment banks.

Mitchell is a retired US Navy SEAL and he currently consults and produces for various companies in the entertainment, athletic/outdoor, and defense industries. Over the span of 21 years, Mitchell’s career included nine deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and numerous other locations. Mitchell is a highly decorated SEAL and Silver Star recipient, the third highest combat award. Since retiring from the military, Mitchell’s entertainment projects include Zero Dark Thirty, Lone Survivor, Homeland, Six, and Call of Duty. He has also partnered with Nike, Under Armour, and Nixon to design and develop various products. Mitchell also pursues his passion of endurance sports, which continues to be a staple in his life.

Pam Alexander founded Alexander Communications, a technology-focused public relations firm that launched tech disruptors such as WebMD and Mindspring/Earthlink, and represented market leaders such as News Corp, Hewlett Packard and TED. After building her firm into one of the largest independent technology communications firms in the U.S., Alexander Communications was acquired by WPP, the world’s largest marketing communications company.

Today Pam consults with technology and media companies and serves on the boards of the Aspen Valley Hospital Foundation, Aspen Community Foundation and Aspen Valley Ski Club.

R.J. is an expert in operations and patient/member engagement across government-sponsored plans, with a focus on Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) at The Focus Group. R.J. Briscione led SDoH for CVS Health, scaling SDoH Strategy across the CVS Health enterprise for all lines of CVS and Aetna business. Prior to this role, R.J. led Medicaid Business Development for Aetna’s East Region across all stages of proposal response for multi year, Medicaid managed care contracts, new product creation, and renewal & de novo business growth. Prior to joining Aetna, R.J. served as director of Medicaid and Duals Operations in multiple states for Anthem and before that he worked for the Georgia House of Representatives. He holds a BS in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

At NEXT VENTŪRES, R.J. works with healthcare-focused portfolio companies by helping them better define and execute go-to-market and/or payer contracting strategies.

Robin Thurston is the CEO of Outside Integrated Media (previously Pocket Outdoor Media), a company building the world’s content and events home for runners, triathletes, and cyclists. Under his leadership, Outside is reinventing how athletes consume content, participate and engage, increase knowledge, find gear, and ultimately perform in their sport.

Before joining Outside, he ran a consumer genetics company called Helix in Silicon Valley before returning to his home state of Colorado. Prior to Helix, Robin co-founded and built MapMyFitness into one of the world’s largest open fitness tracking platforms. Following the acquisition of MapMyFitness by Under Armour, he joined the innovative sports apparel organization and served as Chief Digital Officer, where he led the overall strategic direction of the company’s Connected Fitness and eCommerce business.

Robin spent the first ten years of his career building a mutual fund classification and ratings platform at Lipper (a Thomson Reuters Company), as well as a risk and compensation platform at both American Century Investments and Wellington Management. He graduated with a MS in Finance from University of Colorado at Denver and lives with his wife and three children in Boulder, Co. He is a lifelong cyclist who started riding and racing in the early 1980’s.

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; The Daily Stoic and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the New York Times to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as multiplatinum musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He has invested in many startups, including Thrive Market, MeUndies, Beme, Meetup, Bonobos, 15Five, Spar! and Vinyl Me.

Stacey is a senior finance professional with a career spanning two decades. Stacey worked in investment banking and research at Citigroup, RBS and Goldman Sachs. Moving onto senior executive in-house positions, Stacey developed the Investor Relations function for three high-growth technology companies, and played a pivotal role in two IPO processes, including Square’s IPO in 2016.

During her tenure at Square, Stacey guided the company’s listing, and also led its value narrative with investors during a period where the market cap tripled to over $30 billion and the company was recognized as the Company of the Year by Yahoo Finance in 2018.

She is currently the Vice President of Investor Relations at PagerDuty, a leader in digital operations management that empowers organizations of all sizes with real-time and data-driven insights to drive better business results. In her role Stacey works closely with the CEO, CFO, and multiple key internal and external audiences to articulate the company’s growth opportunity. Stacey is an avid runner and triathlete with six Ironman finishes to her credit, including the Hawaii World Championships. She’s also a professional cycling enthusiast who is perfectly willing to wake up at absurdly early hours to watch races live in Europe.