Brian Smiga is the co-founding partner at Alpha Venture Partners, an innovative late-stage venture fund that invests growth capital in category-leading technology companies sourced from a network of 800+ early stage venture firms. Brian also serves as an advisor to Pritzker Group Venture Capital, a twenty-year old venture firm that’s invested in 200+ technology companies.Prior to Alpha Venture Partners, Brian was the CEO and founder of Preclick, (sold to Smilebox), where he developed popular photo software licensed worldwide by HP, 3M, Sandisk, Walmart, Costco, CVS, and Walgreens. Prior to Preclick, Mr. Smiga was CEO at 3Path, (sold to Cadmus), an Intel and Goldman-Sachs backed early “Dropbox”, and the SVP of Product & Marketing at 1ClickCharge, an early “Paypal”, where his leadership resulted in a profitable exit to CMGi.

In the 1990s, Mr. Smiga began his career as a developer at Booz & Co, and in Silicon Valley, was cofounder and President of Portfolio Software and Actioneer, where he co-authored five collaboration software patents and licensed award-winning software to Apple, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, AOL, 3Com, Acco, and Mastercard. Brian received a BA from Swarthmore College, and graduated first with a Masters of Philosophy from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. Brian is founder of TEDxAsbury.com.

Michael manages Allstate's portfolio of corporate and infrastructure private equity investments including funds, co-investments, and other direct investments. He is responsible for overall portfolio management and strategy as well as leadership of Chicago and London-based investment teams. He serves on numerous fund advisory boards and as a director of many private companies.

Prior to Allstate, Michael spent nine years at Pritzker Group Private Capital where he focused on control acquisitions of middle-market companies. Previously he was a Senior Associate with CIVC Partners, a middle-market private equity fund based in Chicago, and an investment banking analyst for Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup). Michael earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and his bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ryan is the CEO and the strategic leader of Aviditi. He co-founded the firm in 2019 with a group of like-minded Partners. He leads all business, client, and operational matters of Aviditi.

Ryan has more than 20 years of financial experience as a senior management member of the leading private placement / advisory groups at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and Credit Suisse Securities. Prior to forming Aviditi, he had originated, executed, distributed or been part of more than 325 capital raises, aggregating in excess of $480 billion.

Ryan received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Katie is a Managing Director on the Fund Investment team, focused on leading the Emerging & Diverse Investment programs. Prior to this role, Katie was a Senior Relationship Manager to several institutional clients, responsible for portfolio construction and strategic planning. Katie is currently a member of the Responsible Investment Committee and co-chairs the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, she was a Financial Analyst at Murray Devine & Company, a Philadelphia-based Valuation Advisor to private equity and venture capital firms.

In 2021, Katie was recognized with the Think Advisors Luminaries award in the Diversity & Inclusion category. Katie has also previously been named to the Chief Investment Officer Magazine’s 2020 Knowledge Brokers list acknowledging the world’s most influential investment consultants and named to Real Deals’ 2020 “Future 40 Diversity and Inclusion Leaders” list. In addition to her work at Hamilton Lane, Katie is a member of the Private Equity Women’s Investor Network (PE-WIN), 100 Women in Finance and The Forum of Executive Women.

Katie received a B.S. in Finance from Drexel University.