Founder's Voyage

Dr. Shalhavit-Simcha Cohen is a positive psychology researcher and the founder of PosiFest, a festival in Edinburgh that brings together music, research, performance and games to make mental health skills part of everyday life. While studying at Harvard, she joined the MITx team and helped design the first MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, building the personas behind the programme and the ses...

Claudia is a marketing data and AI strategist with over 15 years of experience bridging business, product, and data systems. She previously served as CEO and Marketing Intelligence Director at LUNAVE, and most recently led data and BI at Food Stream Network. A passionate advocate for human-centered AI, Claudia has built innovative tools including an AI agent for campaign analytics that won the Rea...

Claudia is the Business Intelligence Director at LUNAVE with over 12 years of experience in marketing, social media strategy, and data analytics. An alumni of MIT's IoT Bootcamp, she brings a rare combination of deep technical expertise and creative vision, including her work as a talented portrait artist. From building fan websites as a teenager to leading data strategy for global brands like Coc...

Arturo is a Honduras-based full stack software developer with a rich entrepreneurial background that spans theology studies in London, a coffee market venture, and a geo-tracking startup for cattle. After years of searching for his true calling, he found his passion in software development through Lambda School, which he pursued during the COVID-19 pandemic. His diverse experiences across business...

Gema Alava is an artist, writer, and global speaker whose multidisciplinary work bridges art, culture, and humanity. As the founder of Hexagons Global, she has created a powerful art project spanning paintings, installations, seminars, and cultural education platforms inspired by the wisdom of bees and the potential within every human being. Gema has spent 20 years working in the educational depar...

Ben Thorpe is the Design and Manufacturing Director at Naiad Aqua Systems, a startup revolutionising chemical control for swimming pools through modern connected technology. With nearly two decades of industry experience, he has worked across major companies including SharkNinja and Tech21, developing expertise that spans from early-stage concept development to full-scale manufacturing. Ben made t...

Marius is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience spanning healthcare, fintech, HR tech, B2B software, e-commerce, and consumer apps. As an MIT Teaching Fellow, he helped launch the MIT Bootcamps program and taught there for over a decade. He is also a co-author of the upcoming book Disciplined Entrepreneurship Finance for Founders , bringing a uniquely grounded, practitioner-driven...

Shoko Takahashi and Jaime Garcia is the founder of Incubion Social Robotics Laboratories (Incubion), a company dedicated to bridging the gap between robot providers and service industry users in Japan. With over a decade of experience in the robotics sector, Shoko has spearheaded initiatives including the Robot Data Catalog, a comprehensive database of over 800 robots and use cases across industri...

Chris is the founder of Bootstrap AI, a platform helping founders measure ownership risk, strengthen equity durability, and improve exit readiness. He is the author of two books, Unwinnable and Exit with Ownership , hosts the Bootstrapping to Billions podcast, and publishes the Simple Profits newsletter. A serial entrepreneur since the age of nine, Chris has built and exited multiple businesses, f...

Matt is a data and analytics leader with a rare blend of traditional finance and crypto expertise. After five years at Nubank, one of Latin America's largest digital banks, where he built analytics infrastructure at scale, he now leads data at Ether.fi, a major DeFi protocol based in the Cayman Islands. His journey spans continents, industries, and technologies, from building AI and NLP system...

Megan Brief is a wildlife photographer, nature writer, and passionate conservation storyteller who documents human-wildlife conflict and coexistence across the globe. She works as a Digital Marketing Coordinator for Natural Habitat Adventures, an ecotourism company partnered with World Wildlife Fund, where she also leads marketing for their Women's Journeys program. Megan holds a master's...

Sayantika Banik is the founder of Data Journey HQ, an evolving ecosystem that connects open source innovation with design-first AI. With a background shaped by a nomadic military family upbringing, Saya has channeled a lifelong love of exploration into building tools that empower solo and non-technical founders to create secure cost-aware, and production-ready AI systems. A GitHub Secure Open Sour...

Angela is an experienced executive, founder of TC BioPharma, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was part of the pioneering PPL Therapeutics team that cloned Dolly the sheep and went on to serve as Operations Director at Angel Biotechnology. With a career spanning decades across cutting-edge biological research, GMP manufacturing, and clinical trials, Angela has been instrumental in...

Early this year Nancy and Spencer took a moment to look back on an incredible year for Founder's Voyage. In this special retrospective episode, we reflect on the podcast's growth, our most memorable conversations, and the lessons that have stayed with them. From episode 56 to episode 153 released, 38 fascinating guests interviewed, and three live events in London, it's been a landmark...

Our own Co-Founder Spencer Walker-Fooks talks about his first business, Unseen Games, the motivations behind it, and the mistakes that eventually killed it. This episode is a little different, it comes from one of our live events in London. Over four years, Spencer navigated the challenges of creating a social gaming console for pubs and cafes, ultimately drawing transformative lessons from both t...

Joanna Montgomery is a pioneering entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Little Riot, an internationally acclaimed company best known for bringing emotion-driven connected products like Pillow Talk to life. With over 15 years of experience, Joanna has redefined how technology can foster human connection, especially during times of distance or vulnerability. In addition to her entrepreneurial work...

Jordan is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and operator with an impressive track record in both founding and scaling technology businesses, as well as supporting over 1,600 early-stage investments through roles at Rainmaking and Startup Bootcamp. As the current CEO of Cowshed and a co-founder of Rainmaker, Jordan’s career spans founder exits, venture capital, and hands-on company turnarounds. Hi...

Michael is the creator of the Kuzma self-playing guitar, a groundbreaking fusion of engineering and artistry that brings a unique guitar performance to life. What began as a college dorm room project has evolved into a globally recognized innovation featured at high-profile events and delivered to clients in cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Cyprus. With eight years of relentless iterati...

Gabriel is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovator with over 16 years of experience in mission-critical operations, team building, and leading business unit development for Fortune 200 companies. He is known for co-founding Brazil’s first ultra-fast grocery delivery platform and executing large-scale data center projects across continents, including leading hyperscale cloud infrastructure build...

Anoop Antony is a neuroscientist, tech founder, and CEO of NeuroX, where he leads innovations in brain mapping, neurofeedback, and photobiomodulation. With academic credentials spanning psychology and cognitive neuroscience, Anoop has transformed his expertise into building cutting-edge neuro-technology and clinical services, including pioneering early detection methods for dementia and wearable E...

Wayne is the co-founder of 3Dceramet , a pioneering company in the field of ceramic 3D printing, dedicated to enabling high flexibility and sustainable design for industrial-grade ceramics. With a strong background in data expertise and entrepreneurial experience across multiple countries, Wayne has helped build a family-driven business that empowers designers to rapidly prototype and iterate cera...

James is the Director at Digital Twin Build and Managing Director at Format Design London, with over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience at the intersection of design, technology, and the built environment. Having started as a graphic designer and eventually carved a path into business ownership, James’s journey spans building creative agencies, leading multidisciplinary teams, and pioneering d...

Roselle is an accomplished cybersecurity founder and executive, with a unique journey from civil engineering at Princeton to leading cybersecurity efforts at the White House and launching multiple startups, including Uplevel Security (acquired by McAfee) and Key Caliber. With over two decades in technology and security, she is recognized for her deep expertise in computer forensics, commitment to...

Maria is an accomplished AI researcher, community builder, and talent investor based in London. She co-founded the YAMLRG community, bringing together AI researchers and engineers to discuss advances in machine learning. Maria was a Founder in Residence, and now a Talent Investor at Entrepreneurs First, where she identifies and mentors exceptional individuals to build startups from scratch. With r...

Arul and Shirali Nigam are the sibling co-founders behind Circuit Breaker Labs, a pioneering venture focused on detecting mental health vulnerabilities in AI-powered applications. Blending Arul's technical expertise in AI with Shirali's background in Business Administration and Science, the duo have tackled the growing issue of self-harm and “AI psychosis” stemming from unsafe AI interactions. The...