— About Us —
Leaders Turned Mentors
Acceleprise was formed by early leaders in some of the world’s largest SaaS companies. Now, we want to help build the next generation.

— MORE ABOUT US —
Three Cities. One Team.
Acceleprise was founded in 2012 in Washington DC by Sean Glass, Allen Gannett, and Collin Gutman in response to a lack of resources for early-stage enterprise technology companies at the time. In late 2014, a group led by Michael Cardamone licensed the Acceleprise brand and moved the accelerator to San Francisco with a new fund and new leadership that included Rowan Trollope (CEO of Five9), Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsight) and Karen Appleton Page (Early Exec at Box). As noted above, the Acceleprise accelerator program now runs in San Francisco, New York, and Toronto. Sean, Allen, and Collin remain involved as Advisors.
Meet Our Team
Michael Cardamone
CEO & Managing Partner
Michael started Acceleprise in San Francisco in 2014 and has been running it ever since. Prior to Acceleprise, he was an early employee on the BD team at Box and more recently led BD and partner marketing at AcademixDirect. He is an angel investor in 10+ companies, including Flexport, Curated.com, Vemo Education and others. Michael has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University and a MBA from Columbia University.
Whitney Sales
Managing Director, San Francisco
Whitney has 10+ years of startup sales experience and is the founder of The Sales Method, a consultancy that helps startups identify target markets, build successful sales teams and quickly get products to market. She led four companies to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list including LoopNet, Joby, Meltwater and SpringAhead. Whitney graduated with honors with a BA in Sociology from UCSD.
Jonah Midanik
Managing Director, Canada
An engineer by trade, Jonah has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of marketing and technology as a serial entrepreneur in Canada. Jonah has been lucky enough to have several different lenses on the founder journey from bootstrapping, to launched new corporate divisions, and raising 8 figures of venture capital. Jonah currently spends his time as founder and CEO of Limelight Platforms, and helping Canadian companies grow with Acceleprise.
James Murphy
Managing Director, New York City
James is the Co-Founder of Robly, a marketing automation platform based in New York City. He is an active angel investor and advisor to numerous early stage SaaS startups. Before starting Robly, he was a Vice President of Credit Trading at Barclays Capital. James graduated with a B.S. in Finance from Villanova University and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Olivia O'Sullivan
Head of Corporate Engagement & Partnerships
Olivia is a Chicago native, now calling NYC home. She joined Acceleprise from Dow Jones where she managed business, product and innovation strategy across FinServ & Enterprise Tech clients. Olivia is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Faye Almeshaan
Program Manager & Venture Associate
Faye has 6+ years of startup experience, she’s held various roles within marketing, sales, and fundraising in all the fun industries, like wine, spirits, and Cannabis. Most recently, she joined Acceleprise from Nudge Rewards, a B2B SaaS startup in the retail space. Faye graduated with an MBA from the University of Toronto, where she was President of the Graduate Business Council, and received a BA from Florida International University.
Pranavi Cheemakurti
Venture Associate
Pranavi joined Acceleprise from VU Venture Partners, an early-stage venture fund in the Bay Area and the sales & trading division at RBC Capital Markets. In addition, she was recently recognized by the UN as a Top 10 Outstanding Youth for her involvement in social impact and economic development in emerging economies. Pranavi is set to graduate from Purdue University with her BSc. in Finance.
Steph Jones
Associate
Steph is a community driven Brooklyn native that has joined Acceleprise from the NYC public sector. They are an award winning researcher that worked closely with various public officials building equity driven initiatives through public/private partnerships. At Acceleprise, Steph brings that mission driven attitude to uplifting underestimated and underrepresented founders. She is a proud CUNY Baruch graduate, passionate community organizer, and a novice artist and writer.
男人和女人做那个事情的图片,能动的男人和女人做那个事情的图片,能动的,md2pud麻豆传媒官网之光32部md2pud麻豆传媒官网之光32部,南瓜影视大全高清版v2.3.8版下载南瓜影视大全高清版v2.3.8版下载Alexis Clarfield-Henry
Head of Marketing
Alexis is a B2B SaaS marketing specialist who spent 10+ years in the advertising industry before joining a small Toronto-based B2B tech startup as the first marketer and helping take the company to scale and then acquisition by San Francisco’s unicorn Instacart. At Instacart, she led Product Marketing for their Enterprise offering. Her love for helping early stage startups with their messaging and marketing brought her to Acceleprise. Alexis is also a writer, musician, and sound meditation teacher.
Rei Tran
Venture Associate
Rei has experience in management consulting and technical product management at Accenture and Palantir, and she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. She’s worked for over ten different clients in her professional career, and she is particularly proud of her personal projects in civic tech with US Digital Response and as an NYCx Innovation Fellow. She has been on the executive teams of 3 non-profits in the Bay Area, has provided pro-bono consulting for Genesys Works, and has been working with Minds Matter SF & NYC for over 3 years.
— Advisory Board —
Our Advisors
Each office location has an advisory board of B2B SaaS operators to support – and invest in – Acceleprise startups.

Nick Mehta
CEO
Gainsight
Nick is the CEO of Gainsight, an enterprise SaaS company that has raised over $100 million. Prior to Gainsight, Nick was CEO of LiveOffice (acq. by Symantec) and EIR at Accel Partners. Nick holds an AB/SM from Harvard and invests in enterprise startups including Hoopla, which raised over $10 million.
Rowan Trollope
CEO
Five9
Rowan is the CEO of Five9 and has spent 23+ years in various product & executive roles at companies such as Symantec and Cisco, where he was the SVP & GM of the Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco. Rowan is an angel investor and advisor to several enterprise tech companies, and currently holds 7 patents.
Susan Kimberlin
Former Director of Product
Salesforce
Susan is an angel investor and advisor in San Francisco with a background in natural language processing & experience at PayPal & Salesforce. She’s passionate about helping people meet their potential, particularly around leveraging diversity – something she believes is an under-utilized asset to all businesses.
Anthony Kennada
CMO of Front
Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body. Anthony is the CMO of Front, the leading customer communication platform that gives teams the power to meaningfully connect with customers and transform their work into impact. Prior to joining Front, Anthony was the founding CMO at Gainsight and is credited with creating the Customer Success category – a business imperative, profession and software category that helps subscription companies grow sustainably by becoming customer obsessed. Anthony published his marketing playbook at Gainsight with Wiley in 2019 in a book titled Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love, which debuted as a number one new release on Amazon.
Yoav Schwartz
Co-Founder, CEO at Uberflip
Yoav is the co-founder and CEO at Uberflip, a digital content experience platform. Aside from the usual daily duties that come with being CEO, he spends considerable time with his product, engineering and data science teams, constantly looking for the next golden nugget that will delight Uberflip’s customers. He has accumulated two decades worth of experience working in multiple businesses from brick and mortar to Software-as-a-Service, with focuses in marketing, design and product development.
Kerri Jankelow
Head of Sales at Square Canada
Kerri is a passionate, results-driven sales leader with over 15 years of experience in the technology sector. She began her sales career at IBM and has since held various sales and leadership roles in tech organizations. She has built and led high performing sales teams for innovative companies like LinkedIn and Hired and now, Square. Kerri dedicates time to charity organizations with causes that are important to her like the Reena Foundation and CAMH.
Bocar Dia
Co-Founder at Proxy AI
Bocar is a technology entrepreneur and GTM leader who is passionate about building and scaling Sales from the ground up. He joined Hootsuite pre-revenue as part of the first sales team and went on to become a sales leader through the growth to $100M+, notably starting, building and leading the largest revenue region (NA East) and 100+ people office in Toronto. Bocar is now founder at Proxy AI, a stealth-mode startup solving one of the biggest challenges in sales.
Leah Carr
Strategy & Operations Leader
Leah started her career in tech in 2013, she’s been part of major Canadian startups such as AceTech (now called Peerscale), Crowdmatrix, and Coinsquare, usually starting out as an early employee and leading the company through growth and scale. She is now a Director at BMO managing an organization of 150 people which includes 10 agile teams working on various features, our mobile and online banking platform teams and operations for the Digital Accelerator.
Sean Glass
Founder & CEO of Advantia Health
Sean is an entrepreneur, investor, and believer in the power of people. He is the Chairman and CEO of Advantia Health and previously founded the higher education focused online financial services firm, Higher One, where he served as founding president and then as part of the executive team as Chief Marketing Officer for 8 years. Higher One went public in 2010 (NYSE:ONE). Additionally, Sean was the co-founder of Acceleprise in DC
Allen Gannett
Former Founder & CEO of TrackMaven and Author of Creative Curve
Founded TrackMaven, which in October 2018 merged with Skyword to form the #1 content marketing platform. Previously, co-founded Acceleprise in DC, the leading SaaS startup accelerator. Author of The Creative Curve, a book about developing the right idea at the right time. The Creative Curve is available in eight languages and has been featured on CNBC, Inc, Business Insider, and more.
Collin Gutman
Managing Partner at SaaS Ventures
Collin is currently the Managing Partner at SaaS Ventures. In addition to founding Acceleprise in DC, Collin was the co-founder & CEO of WorkAmerica, which is the Linkedin for Skilled Trades. Prior to WorkAmerica, Collin was the Chief Strategy Officer at EmployInsight and spent time with the Boston Consulting Group.
— Acceleprise Mentors —
Our Mentors
Each office location has a mentor of B2B SaaS operators to support – and coach – Acceleprise startups.

David Steckel
Founder of Setter Inc.
David has 5 years of Start Up experience as the founder of Setter Home Services which began as an offshoot of a previous business he founded 10 years prior to that. Setter is backed by Sequoia Capita and NFX and completed their Series A in 2018. David typically focuses on Strategy, 0-1 product innovation and corporate development. David graduated with an HBA from UofT.
Joanne Fedeyko
Founder & CEO of Connection Silicon Valley
Joanne Fedeyko is the Founder & CEO of Connection Silicon Valley, an organization that helps Canadian companies collaborate, connect, innovate, and partner with Silicon Valley’s world-renowned technology ecosystem via programs, events and customized consulting. One of CSV’s signature programs connects Canadian women-led startups to Silicon Valley’s influential network to help them grow and scale. Joanne also manages theBoardlist in Canada, a curated talent marketplace that connects highly qualified female candidates to global board opportunities. Joanne is a native Albertan and has lived in Silicon Valley for 20 years.
Roger Figueiredo
VP Marketing @ #paid
Roger is the VP Marketing at #paid, where his primary job is to get people excited about influencer marketing. Before this, he was the Head of Marketing at Toronto startup Upchain. His deep demand generation experience dates back to his time at Shutterstock where he was the Director of Global Enterprise Demand Gen and ABM working his way up from being a Demand Gen Manager.
Mo Kerbek
Director, RevOps at Acerta
Mo is a Revenue Operations leader with extensive experience in growing SMEs through building GTM strategies, designing and implementing scalable repeatable customer acquisition and retention processes. Alongside leading the Revenue Operations function at Acerta, Mo provides Operations advisory services to companies in North America and EMEA. Mo has been in the startup world for about a decade and has a passion for helping the little guy punch above their weight – from securing funding in competitive environments to using that funding to maximize growth.
Bryn Jones
Co-Founder, CEO at PartnerStack (YC '15)
Bryn Jones is the founder at Partnerstack YC’15 (formerly GrowSumo) enables companies to leverage partnerships in order to grow revenue, increase distribution, and go to market quicker and more efficiently. The fastest growing software companies in the world like Asana, Drift, Freshworks, and Intuit use PartnerStack to power their reseller, marketing, and referral partner programs. He previously is the co-founder at Pod and is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario.
Ursula Ayrout
Founder & CEO, MeasureCo.
Ursula Ayrout is a CMO-level marketing leader with a track record of building pipeline from scratch for startups, and enterprises. Company leaders trust her instincts based on 18 years of experience at fast-growing companies like Pantheon, Salesforce, HP, & Business Objects, who looked to her to create the momentum they needed to, grow even faster—often within months. She focuses on whatever a company needs to do next to drive customer growth, whether that means identifying sales channels, generating demand, developing positioning and messaging, or mentoring their team.
Bill Lapcevic
VP Business Development @ Auth0
Bill’s experience spans VP/COO/CCO Customer Success, Post Sales (Support, Services, Education, Training, Account Management), Business Development, Alliances, for Mid-Sized B2B SaaS and fast growing innovative startups. He is a Senior Exec with experience building and growing teams at all stages (from Seed to IPO). He helps organizations grow through focus on the customer journey, creating passionate long lived customers, engaged functional teams, and a culture of delighting the customer.
Doug Landis
Growth Partner, Emergence Capital
Prior to joining Emergence Doug spent 12+ years driving sales productivity & efficiency inside of the world’s top technology companies such as Box, Google and Salesforce.
Most recently Doug was the Chief Storyteller & VP of Sales Productivity at Box, a provider of content collaboration software with 1,500 employees and annual revenue run rate of $300 million. As the Chief Storyteller Doug was responsible for helping to change the way Box talked to and about their customers by infusing the voice of the customer in every aspect of the company.
As the former VP of Sales productivity at Box Doug was responsible for accelerating the performance of the global sales organization. Doug brings a wealth of experience in driving sales efficiency and excellence through the use of data and customer insights to help transform the way sales organizations scale, develop and engage with prospects and customers.
Doug received his Bachelors degree at the University of Oregon and when he’s not cheering on his Ducks you can find him on the tennis courts, the soccer pitch or in the cold bay area waters surfing big waves.
Darren Kaplan
Co-Founder and Board Member @ hiQ Labs
Darren is the Co-Founder and Board Member of hiQ Labs. hiQ is an award-winning, venture-backed, data science and people analytics company aiming to make work better. They are customer-focused and innovate with feedback from our clients, prospects and partner community named Elevate.