Team

People you can reach directly.

Eight people across four offices, plus a mentor bench founders can book directly. No gatekeepers, no committee you never meet.

  • Elena Mercado

    Founder & Chief Executive

    San Francisco

    Founded Stackpass in 2014 after a decade building and selling clinical software. Started the program with eleven partner tools and a spreadsheet of founders who needed them.

  • Daniel Kwon

    Head of Infrastructure Partnerships

    San Francisco

    Former distributed systems engineer. Joined in 2016 and negotiates the cloud, security, and developer tooling credits at the centre of the pass.

  • Amara Okafor

    Head of AI & Data Track

    New York

    Published machine learning researcher. Runs the AI and data track, from GPU allocations to the mentor bench behind them.

  • Jonas Lindqvist

    Head of Climate & Energy Track

    London

    Spent twelve years in industrial energy before joining in 2019. Runs climate, energy, and heavy-industry membership across Europe.

  • Priya Raman

    Lead, Fintech Track

    New York

    Former payments product lead. Supports treasury, capital markets, and the regulated fintech members other programs turn away.

  • Tom Sullivan

    Head of Platform

    San Francisco

    Runs talent, go-to-market support, and the founder peer groups inside the community. Previously built two recruiting functions from scratch.

  • Mei Tanaka

    Head of Asia-Pacific

    Singapore

    Opened our Singapore office in 2023. Twenty years operating and building ecosystems across Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

  • Grace Adeyemi

    Chief Financial Officer

    San Francisco

    Oversees program operations, partner reporting, and compliance across four jurisdictions.

01How we work

One person, start to finish.

The person you meet is the person who stays

Whoever reviews your application becomes your program manager. They handle your credit allocations, your mentor matches, and your introductions. Nobody hands you off after onboarding.

Joining us

We hire rarely and slowly, usually from within the network. If you have operated in one of our tracks and want to help founders for a living, write to us directly. Say hello

02Advisors & mentors

Operators on call.

Advisors who have built the thing you are building, one stage ahead. They are not on a roster for the website — every one of them has taken a founder call in the last quarter.

  • Nadia Chowdhury

    Former CTO, payments infrastructure at scale

    Systems architecture, reliability, and engineering org design past 100 people.

  • Rafael Ortiz

    Two-time founder, both acquired

    Enterprise go-to-market, first ten sales hires, pricing under pressure.

  • Beatrice Nwosu

    Former Chief People Officer

    Compensation design, performance culture, and founder-to-CEO transitions.

  • Ken Watanabe

    Research lead, machine learning

    Model evaluation, applied research roadmaps, and hiring research talent.

  • Marisol Duarte

    Regulatory counsel, health and fintech

    Clearance pathways, compliance architecture, and audit-ready operations.

  • Oliver Brandt

    Former CFO, public technology company

    Financial discipline, board reporting, and preparing for the growth round.

Give your startup an unfair advantage.

One application. Credits, tools, mentors, capital intros, and a global founder community — free for qualifying startups, and we never take equity.