As Managing Partner of 412 Venture Fund, Ilana leads fund activities, including sourcing, evaluating and investing in the Pittsburgh region’s most promising startups. Ilana is co-director of the Global Anti-Hate Technology Venture Fair, which is being held in conjunction with the current conference.
Previously, Ilana was a Managing Director of Riverfront Ventures, Innovation Works’ Venture Fund for early stage companies. She also served at Innovation Works as Managing Director of Hardware and at AlphaLab Gear where she led a team that helped startups make rapid progress through the early stages of product and customer development. Earlier in her career, Ilana led and grew tech companies from startup to exit — building management teams, raising venture capital, and managing mergers and acquisitions from both ideas of the table (buyer and seller).
Ilana frequently serves in leadership roles on boards of private companies and not-for-profit organizations. Her academic background includes a B.A. in Biological Sciences and Economics from Northwestern University, and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
The catalytic power of this Summit in bringing together those who are devoting their lives to pushing back and working to confront, understand and work towards solutions around hate in our society is a noble and difficult task. The Summit not only energized those who attended but led to connecting the dots in a global network of those doing this work. The stories of the victims of hate were painful to witness but their courage in coming forward was inspirational. Those who attended left energized with the hope that by working together solutions can be forged.
