Organizers (USA)

Anna Dvornikova
Managing Director, The Entrepreneurs’ Club; Angel Investor

Anna is a Founder and CEO of Entana Corp., an angel investment and venture advisory firm that focuses on business strategy, planning and fundraising for the early-stage technology start-ups. Anna serves on Advisory Boards and the Board of Directors of several technology startup companies, including WikiMart, Manumatix, and OktoGo. She is the author of many articles on entrepreneurship, angel and venture financing.

For many years Anna served as the President of AmBAR, a non-profit business network of Russian-speaking professionals, growing the organization from a small local gathering to over 2500 member international organization known worldwide. She was the Founder and Chairperson of the SVOD Conference. As AmBAR’s President, Anna organized a delegation of 20 prominent investors representing top Silicon Valley VC firms with more than $60 bln under management to Moscow in May 2010 to meet with Russian business, investment and government elite, including President Medvedev, to further ties between Silicon Valley and Russian high-tech community. She also was an organizer and a host of the Russian President in the Silicon Valley in June 2010.

Previously, Anna was a Co-Founder and the VP of Business Development at BKP Security, a government IT security company. Prior to that, she was a Foreign Advisor at the international law firm of Coudert Brothers. Anna has her J.D. from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and her Master of Laws degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley.
 

Vera Shokina
Partner , Runa Capital

Vera is a partner with Runa Capital, Moscow based seed and early-stage venture capital firm. Prior to joining Runa Capital, Vera was a Vice President with Silicon Valley Bank where she managed the bank relationships with early stage technology companies. Focusing primarily on VC backed software and services companies, she provided specialized debt financing, commercial banking products, venture capital assistance, international financing and products, and M&A advisory services for her technology clients. Previously, Vera held several senior banking positions both in Moscow and Silicon Valley , including with Goldman Sachs, GE Capital and Citibank.

Vera holds B.S. from the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages and MBA from the Finance Academy of the Russian Federation

Stas Khirman
Founder , The Entrepreneurs' Club

Stas Khirman is serial entrepreneur, telecommunication expert and technological leader.

Stas Khirman has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry as an architect, manager, visionary and inventor. Prior to "Khirman&Son,LLC" , Stas co-found Skyrider - revolutionary company developing technologies to organize and monetize peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Prior to founding Skyrider, Stas co-founded Narus, a global leader in software and technology for the telecom industry and government agencies, where he designed the world’s most scalable network transaction analysis system. Khirman had previously served as the networking group leader at VDOnet, a pioneer in internet video. Khirman was behind the development of a number of standards organizations and participated in the early definition of the VoIP H.323 protocol.

Khirman holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Kiev.