Dave Blundin
Founder, Exponential Ventures

Dave Blundin is a serial entrepreneur and Founder of Exponential Ventures (XPV). Dave is also Managing Partner at Link Ventures, a VC firm investing in early-stage technology startups. He has co-founded 23 companies, at least five of which have achieved $100 million+ valuations, and served on 21 private and public boards.

XPV’s mission is to harness talent and deploy capital to entrepreneurs leveraging AI in an aligned fashion to positively impact humanity by addressing the world’s grand challenges. The tech incubation process has led Dave to become chairman of 12 companies, including EverQuote (NASDAQ: EVER). Dave is also 
the Chairman and founding CEO of Vestmark, which manages over $2TN in US assets, and General Partner at Vestigo Ventures, a fintech-focused fund. 

Dave is extremely passionate about mentoring and coaching young entrepreneurs & management teams to accelerate the impact of technology on society. Dave is currently an instructor at MIT teaching a class in Spring 2024 named “AI for Impact: Venture Studio”, which is vastly oversubscribed and has about 100 students.
Dave sits on the Board of Directors of XPRIZE and received his BS in Computer Science from MIT where he researched neural network technology at the AI lab. 
 

Margaret Vaughan Cox
Founder and President, MCV Consulting

Margaret Vaughan Cox is president of MCV Consulting, a consultancy dedicated to helping families and their enterprises thrive across generations. She is sought out by sophisticated and high-profile wealth owners to help them thoughtfully plan for and navigate complex generational transitions. Margaret works with families to establish shared vision and goals for their enterprise, create and evolve effective governance and decision-making structures, develop and implement succession plans, and nurture the valuable capital that enriches the family beyond their financial assets. She builds enduring relationships with her clients, often serving as a trusted advisor to multiple generations within the same family over the course of many years. She is routinely referred to families and family office executives by wealth advisors, estate planning attorneys, and other key advisors who recognize there are important conversations and alignments the family must achieve before efforts on other fronts will be successful. With over 25 years of experience in her field, Margaret’s work has taken her throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and the Middle East. 

Prior to forming MCV Consulting in 2002, Margaret served as a principal at Generon Consulting (now Reos Partners and Generon International) in Boston where she honed her skills as a strategy consultant and became an experienced scenario planner with a diverse international client base of corporations, nonprofits, governments, and NGOs. After founding MCV Consulting, Margaret applied the methodology of scenario planning to helping families contemplate alternate futures for their enterprise and identify a sense of shared purpose and compelling vision for the future. Margaret is a popular speaker on generational transitions and has served as a senior member of the Chicago-based Family Office Exchange (FOX) consulting team for the past 15 years.    

Margaret earned her BA in English Literature and MBA from Vanderbilt University. She received certification in the facilitation of scenario planning through the Global Business Network (GBN) in Amsterdam, is a graduate of the Society for Organizational Learning’s Foundations for Leadership program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a Birkman® certified coach. Additionally, Margaret is a graduate of the American Works of Art Masters Program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York City. 

Margaret currently serves on the board of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the board of the Houston Advanced Research Center for Sustainability Science, the advisory council of The James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University, and the governing council of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.  She is a member of the International Women’s Forum and a director emeritus of The Texas Lyceum, a select group of 96 leaders from across the state of Texas.  

Margaret and her husband, Jonathan, have three children and live in Houston, Texas.
 

John Coyle
Design Thinking Expert, Olympic Medalist, and Emmy Award Winner

John K. Coyle is one of the world's leading experts in "Design Thinking” and Innovation, and a highly sought-after speaker. John's presentations are always an audience favorite because he combines the exhilarating stories of a champion athlete with the data and intellect of a professor and best-selling author. 

John is the founder of Speaking Design Thinking, and a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in Engineering - Product Design (Design Thinking) and Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School with an MBA in organizational behavior, marketing and entrepreneurship. A former head of innovation for a Fortune 500 wireless telecom, John has also been the SVP of innovation for a leading strategy consultancy. John is a world class athlete in two sports (cycling and speedskating) and an Olympic silver medalist. In his role as an NBC Olympic Sports analyst, he won an Emmy for production of a film feature. He is a guest lecturer on Innovation at several leading universities (Kellogg, Marquette, CEDIM). John is a five-time TEDx speaker, and an award-winning author of two books, including the best seller: Design For Strengths: Applying Design Thinking to Individual and Team Strengths. John is also a thought leader in the field of “chronoception” - the neuroscience and psychology of how humans process time. 

As a speaker and writer, John’s special talent is weaving facts, examples and business principles into engaging, accessible stories which bring his topics and frameworks to life. People leave John's programs inspired and empowered to make significant, positive changes in their business and personal lives. 
 

Joan DiFuria
Co-Founder, MMCI

Joan DiFuria, Co-Founder of MMCI, is a globally recognized speaker and consultant for families of wealth, family businesses, Family Offices, and enterprises. She helps clients attain successful and lasting impact on their lives, their families, and their businesses. Ms. DiFuria has co-developed and led numerous training programs on the psychology of wealth and life planning for financial and philanthropic professionals.

Bringing together expertise in business and psychology, she focuses on issues associated with wealth, such as the impact of money on children, succession planning, governance, legacy, and the challenges of multigenerational family communication. Ms. DiFuria combines a unique and proven expertise in business and psychology to provide high-level leadership development to senior-level executives and executive teams in Fortune 500 companies. Ms. DiFuria completed the Harvard Business School Program for Management Development and has 18 years of industry experience as national marketing director and director of long-term strategic operations for the world’s largest multinational metals distribution corporation. After her success in industry, she become a licensed psychotherapist and has been in private practice for over 30k years. MMCI is the amalgam and outgrowth of her experience, capabilities, and interests.

Joan is known throughout the industry as a person who is truly passionate about her work, enjoys talking to people, empowering women, and helping family businesses thrive.

Ms. DiFuria has appeared in major newspapers, magazines, radio, and television as well as speaking to notable financial and business institutions around the globe. She is co-author of Affluence Intelligence; and, The 10x10 Learning Roadmap: Advancing Flourishing in Families of Wealth, as well as articles in both professional and mainstream publications.
 

Stephen Goldbart 
Co-Founder, MMCI

Co-Founder of MMCI, with over 40 years of professional experience, Stephen Goldbart is a licensed clinical psychologist, professor, author, public speaker, and organizational consultant. His professional interests focus on the opportunities and challenges of wealth, including the psychology of life transitions, adult development, depth psychotherapy, neuroscience, strategic and succession planning. Dr Goldbart has a passion for working with complex family/organizational systems, helping to clarify purpose and establish structured procedures to find solution pathways. He has consulted with individuals, families, Family Offices, and organizations to help develop the fulfilling and sustainable balance of personal, professional, and philanthropic goals. He has codeveloped and led training programs for financial and philanthropic professionals. As a senior-level consulting psychologist, he has been teaching seminars and workshops for over 30 years for both practicing therapists and clients.

Dr. Goldbart is co-author of Mapping the Terrain of the Heart: Passion, Tenderness, and the Capacity to Love; Affluence Intelligence; and The 10x10 Learning Roadmap: Advancing Flourishing in Families of Wealth, as well as articles in both professional and mainstream publications. Along with Joan DiFuria, articles on issues of money and meaning can be found on their Affluence Intelligence blog at Psychology Today. (www.psychologytoday.com/blog/affluence-intelligence).

Appearing publicly before audiences, including national radio and television, philanthropic organizations, and professional associations, he has covered topics that have included issues such as: having successful multigenerational family meetings, the emotional issues of wealth and inheritance, raising children in affluent families, effective philanthropy from the inside out, and strategic life planning. 
 

Sara Hamilton
Founder and Board Chair 

Sara is one of the first professionals to recognize family offices as the most sophisticated segment of wealth management, and she has been described as “the Warren Buffet of the family office industry”. When hundreds of U.S. families became centi-millionaires through leveraged buyouts in the 1980s and 1990s, private family offices were created to manage family capital and to educate wealth owners. 

Sara founded the Family Office Exchange (FOX) as a peer network for family office executives in 1989. Within 10 years, she could see that families needed help with family governance and managing financial transitions, in addition to their family offices. As a result, FOX evolved into an advisor to family enterprises, a platform for sharing family wealth best practices, and an industry advocate for the importance of private enterprise in a global economy.Today, Sara provides input to the strategic direction for FOX and supports the development of new programs and services for family enterprises and wealth advisory firms in 25 countries. Sara is the co-author of Family Legacy and Leadership: Preserving True Family Wealth in Challenging Times. She serves on the executive education faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where she is an adjunct faculty member for their Private Wealth Management and Essentials of Wealth courses in the Executive Education program. She is on the founding board for the Foundation Advancing Impact and Sustainability in Bologna and the founding board for the Private Directors Association in Chicago.
 

Byron D. Trott
Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer, BDT & MSD Partners

Byron D. Trott is Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of BDT & MSD Partners, a
merchant bank with an advisory and investment platform built to serve the distinct needs of
business owners and strategic, long-term investors. He is also Co-Chief Investment Officer of
BDT Capital Partners, a registered investment advisor of the firm.

In 2009, Byron founded BDT & Company, a predecessor firm to BDT & MSD Partners. Prior to
that, he had a distinguished 27-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was Vice
Chairman of the global Investment Banking Division from 2005 to 2009. He is a director of Cox
Enterprises, Enterprise Holdings, Inc., and Sunrise Group Holdings, LLC (“Whataburger”).

Byron serves on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago and the Center for Strategic
& International Studies. He is also a director of Conservation International. In 2011, Byron was
inducted into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, and having served as
President and Chairman, he now serves as Chairman Emeritus of the Association. Byron
received an AB from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business.