Our Team
Meet our current team members located in Ithaca and New York CityFund Managers
Joe Aldcowski
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Ikenna Nwafor
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Yan Ren
Fund Manager | Cornell Tech
Arvind Venkataraman
Fund Manager | Cornell Tech
Ayobami Bello
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Laura DeMassa
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Florence Luna
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Pietro Bini
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Sam Evans
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Nicholas Moran
Fund Manager | Ithaca
Fund Advisors
Fund Manager Profiles
2022-2023 Fund Manager Team
edJoe Aldcowski
Joe is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to pursuing an MBA, Joe worked as a CPA for PwC and Baker Tilly, providing audit services for clients ranging from well-known private equity and hedge funds to manufacturers, distributors, and both publicly-traded and private banks. Most recently, he worked in-house as a fund accountant for a hedge fund focusing on distressed credit opportunities, where he was responsible for managing the operations and reporting of investment vehicles with nearly $2bn in AUM. Joe has a strong interest in both the Industrial and Technology sectors and is enthusiastic about exploring the overlap of emerging technologies between the two.
Ayobami Bello
Ayobami is a Cornell MBA and MEng degree holder (Electrical & Electronics Engineering with Management) from Imperial College London. Prior to business school, he worked as a consultant at EY and an investment banker at Standard Bank Group. Ayobami is passionate about early-stage investing, and is interested in companies operating in the Technology, Media, and Consumer / Retail sectors. He will be joining the Investment Banking team at Morgan Stanley next summer.
Pietro Bini
Pietro Bini is a Ph.D. candidate in Finance at Cornell Johnson. Prior to Cornell, Pietro was a research assistant in the Finance Department at Bocconi University. Since he joined the academia, he advocates the idea that there is nothing more practical than a good theory. Pietro also has experience in the private sector with Deloitte in their Financial Advisory practice. Pietro received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. cum laude from Bocconi University.
Jimmy Carnes
James is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to Johnson, he spent four years in the United States Marine Corps as a telecommunications officer, where he was stationed in Virginia and California and deployed to Saudi Arabia. Following his military service, James worked as the Director of Business Operations for a startup specializing in analyzing nutritional data. He is passionate about robust, interoperable systems and the people that use them. James received a B.S. in Business and Management and an M.S. in Business Analytics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.
Laura DeMassa
Laura DeMassa is a second-year J.D. student at Cornell Law School. While attending Cornell University as an undergraduate, Laura conducted immigration research in Paris, was the Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Affairs Review, and won the M.H. Abrams Honors Thesis Award for her thesis on capital punishment. This past summer, Laura worked for a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Laura is an associate on Cornell Law Review and the president of the Intellectual Property and Technology Students Association at Cornell Law School. She will also be a Teaching Assistant for American Legal Writing and Startup Legal Issues. This upcoming summer, Laura will work as a summer associate at a law firm in Palo Alto where she will be part of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital group.
Sam Evans
Sam is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell University. Prior to Cornell, he spent time in Big 4 consulting, venture capital, and entrepreneurship within industries including financial services, agriculture-tech, food-tech and CPG. Since attending Cornell, he has worked with the McGovern Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences and as a Teaching Assistant for multiple graduate level courses. Last summer he worked at Atlantic Health System helping to establish their first venture studio. Sam received his MHA from Cornell University and BS in Finance from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Sarah Landes
Sarah Landes is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to Johnson, she spent five years in Boston where she had a range of experiences from founding her own company, to working in marketing at an early-stage cybersecurity startup, to covering market research for F500 technology firms. She is passionate about identifying and supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs. Sarah holds a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of Chicago and will be interning at Citigroup as a Technology Investment Banking Associate during the summer of 2022.
Florence Luna
Florence Luna is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to Johnson, she spent five years at Goldman Sachs across Operations, Controllers, and Equity Research and one year with AmeriCorps helping to bridge the digital divide for public housing residents. She is passionate about supporting underrepresented founders and solutions impacting traditionally underserved communities. Florence holds a B.S. in Business Economics and a B.A. in East Asian Studies from The University of Arizona and interned as an Investment Associate for VamosVentures during the summer of 2022.
Nicholas Moran
Nicholas Moran is a J.D. Candidate at Cornell Law School, following time in the defense industry. Nicholas negotiated legal contracts concerning highly-secured-communications equipment, balancing his firm’s interest with clients’ interests in the process. At the Law School, Nicholas has worked with the Afghanistan Assistance Clinic, serves as an associate editor for the Cornell International Law Journal, is the Treasurer of the First Generation Law Society, and is the Director of Judicial Engagement for the American Constitution Society. Last summer, Nicholas assisted the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office in complex securities fraud actions. Nicholas will spend this upcoming summer as a summer associate at Schulte, Roth & Zabel in New York City. Nicholas holds a bachelors degree in history from Providence College.
Ikenna Nwafor
Ikenna Nwafor is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to Johnson, he spent two years as a biomedical engineer for SpectralMD, a medical device start-up creating innovative imaging technologies using artificial intelligence and machine learning. He will be interning at Bank of America as an Investment Banking Associate in the Healthcare group during the 2022 summer. He is also an MD Candidate at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and received his Bachelor of Science in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Antoine Saint-Victor
Antoine is a 2023 MBA candidate at Cornell Tech. He began his career in revenue cycle management at athenahealth, a health technology company located in the Greater Boston area and a leader in the electronic health record space. He frequently collaborated with business and developer teams to lead and coordinate large-scale implementations for health systems across several modalities throughout the US. He had a range of experiences from internal and external workflow optimization to post-live monitoring and quality management. He subsequently pursued his passion for medicine and started medical school at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School as part of the class of 2024, developing interests in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery. Antoine holds a B.A. in Biological Sciences with minors in French and Applied Economics & Management from Cornell University.
Yan Ren
Yan Ren is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to Johnson, she spent five years in NYC at PwC on Real Estate, Private Equity and M & A taxation and one year with Citco helping to build its first US real estate investment team. Yan also spent half a year in a corporate development role in China for a semiconductor startup. She is passionate about connecting and supporting underrepresented founders. Yan holds a B.S. in Business with a double major in Accounting and Finance from Indiana University Bloomington and interned with Amazon with its Global Media, Advertising & Corporate Development finance during the summer of 2022.
Arvind Venkataraman
Arvind is a 2023 MBA Candidate at Cornell Tech. He started out his career as an entrepreneur, founding a tutoring marketplace in his dorm room at SMU in Dallas, Texas, which he operated through college and post-graduation. As a founder Arvind developed social enterprise business lines and launched a web-app platform used to manage the core operation. He went on to work as a dual employee at Q Investments LP, a $2B multi-strategy family office and its affiliate bank in Fort Worth, Texas, working across the trade desk, credit research, and commercial real estate divisions. Arvind managed a $100 million SPAC Portfolio, built tools used to trade, hedge, and manage portfolios of corporate bonds, credit default swaps, leveraged loans, and collateralized loan obligations. He led teams building data products used to optimize tax planning across all the firms’ entities. He holds a B.B.A in Finance from Southern Methodist University. Arvind is passionate about social impact and is a Dana Juett Resident with Dallas Social Venture Partners. He is an avid birder and was the treasurer for the Dallas County Audubon Society. Arvind is excited about market opportunities in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Green Investing, and Fintech spaces.