Our Origin

Fisher College of Business '75

Jim Terranova is the former Managing Director of the WS Investment Company, the in-house venture capital/private equity funds at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P. C.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is the premier legal advisor to technology and growth business enterprises worldwide, as well as the investment banks and venture capital firms that finance them. For fifty years, WSGR has established its reputation by having an unmatched knowledge of its clients' industries, as well as deep and long-standing contacts throughout the technology sector. The Firm's legal expertise serves clients at all stages of their growth, from venture-backed startup companies to multi-billion dollar global enterprises. WSGR's clients include some of the most recognized names in the technology, life sciences, venture capital, finance and retail sectors.

As a member of the WS Investment Committee, Jim was responsible for selecting and monitoring investment opportunities from among WSGR's private client and venture capital/private equity funds. He was responsible for all fund accounting, tax reporting and all internal and external reporting. As a member of the WSGR Retirement Benefits Committee, Jim's duties included selecting and monitoring the investment types and managers for all the Firm's retirement plans.

Terranova has extensive contacts in the venture community and is involved with several "angel" investor groups and entrepreneur associations. He is involved with the startup communities and mentors startups at The Ohio State University, UCLA, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Berkeley and Stanford University.

Jim joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in 1996 after a career devoted entirely to financial services. He has managed client portfolios and traded fixed-income securities for a major Wall Street firm, marketed real estate investments on a wholesale basis and managed investments for a life and casualty insurer.

Terranova currently teaches in the Continuing Studies Program at Stanford University. He previously taught as an adjunct professor of finance at Menlo College, a small private college in Atherton, California.

Jim received his BSBA degree in Finance and Economics from The Ohio State University and has been active for several years with The Ohio State University Alumni Association. He is currently a member of the Fisher College of Business Alumni Board and also serves on the Board of the Ohio State Innovation Foundation, the entity that owns all intellectual property generated at the university.

College of Arts and Sciences ‘04

Mr. Will Allen has an authentic style of leadership, honed from years of team sports and business; combined with an innate sense for people, motivation drivers and collaboration, which he leverages to identify distinct qualities of leadership and keen recognition for strategy execution. Mr. Allen is dedicated, humble and selfless in his work. He is known as a go-to problem solver, connecting the right resources to optimize solutions that will mitigate risk and ultimately help companies better serve their customers and stakeholder communities.

Mr. Allen has over a decade of experience as a business leader, investor, non-profit founder and professional athlete managing high-performing teams and producing outsized returns on investments. Mr. Allen has led investments, advised companies and up-starts on market growth strategy, business analytics, facilitation of strategic partnerships, and leadership development. Mr. Allen’s direct leadership experience includes serving on a 10-county region CEO economic development organization, a $24B multi-state healthcare organization, where he serves on the audit and risk committee’s, and also Pennsylvania’s workforce investment board.

In his current role, Mr. Allen is a founding partner at Magarac Venture Partners (MVP), an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in market-defining technology companies. As a founding partner, Mr. Allen brings strategic creativity and analytic rigor to help scale portfolio companies for high performance. In addition, he leads the design and integration of the firm’s DEI investing initiatives, establishing the firm’s financial commitment of $50M to diverse entrepreneurs and architecting the firms inclusive term sheet hiring policy.

Previously, Mr. Allen co-founded Nascent Group Holdings immediately following his career in the National Football League where he has led real estate investments through multiple business cycles.

During his collegiate and professional football career was when Allen developed his skills in leadership, decisive analytical assessment, focus, discipline and driving a team/culture-oriented environment. He was member of the 2002 National Championship Team at The Ohio State University. He earned All-American honors his senior year. He competed at the highest professional football level, playing 12 years in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Mr. Allen was named to the Pittsburgh Business Times “Power 100- Most Influential Business Leaders”. Mr. Allen earned his master’s degree in business management and analytics from the University of Dayton and a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication from The Ohio State University. Mr. Allen resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and loves the game of golf and is a sought after keynote speaker.

Fisher College of Business ‘08, Moritz College of Law ‘15

Ryan is an accomplished M&A attorney and investment banker with deep expertise in emerging markets and healthcare. Currently, Ryan serves as lead counsel and director for Huron Consulting’s investment banking practice group, a role which enables him to leverage his interdisciplinary background in law and finance. Having spent extensive time both working and studying in Europe and Latin America, Ryan routinely employs a global approach to help senior business leaders negotiate deals and solve some of their greatest challenges.

Ryan resides in New York City and has served as President of the Ohio State NYC Alumni Club since 2018. Ryan also gives back to the Ohio State community by teaching a course on business negotiation at the Moritz College of Law and volunteering his time on the Fisher Alumni Board. Outside of the office, Ryan is passionate about mentoring, rugby, sailing, and hiking with his rescue pup, Campbell.

Ryan holds a JD from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, an MSc in environmental science from the University of Edinburgh, and a BSBA in finance and international business from the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.

Fisher College of Business ‘79

Membership Committee Chair

Cindi is a serial entrepreneur and passionate about business. She loves startups and even supports new businesses through Angel Investing. Cindi owns Englefield Business Advisors, LLC, where she helps small business owners startup, grow, right-size, or prepare to sell their businesses. She founded and grew an Educational Publishing business over 20 years, until selling it in 2011.

She graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration where she majored in Marketing. Much of her business knowledge and expertise came from growing up and working part-time through college at Englefield Oil Company, founded by her father in 1961. And, by being a member of organizations like Women Presidents’ Organization and National Association of Women Business Owners, as well as having many business advisors and mentors.

Cindi believes in Philanthropy and is involved with many non-profits like Women's Small Business Accelerator, Healthy LifeStars and many more. She is a former member of the X-Squared Angels Investment Group and is the co-founder and Chief Investor Relationship Officer of Accelerating Angels that launched in 2022. She enjoys golf, fishing, reading, hiking, and horseback riding. She lives in Dublin, Ohio to be close to her children and grandchildren. During the winter months she, Dave and her dog Zelda spend time in Scottsdale Arizona or in the Florida Keys.

Fisher College of Business ‘02

Rachel is Founder + CEO of TENFOLD and TENSPACE. TENFOLD is a culture strategy and creative firm that builds brands through culture by leveraging what makes them truly unique and special. The company’s award-winning solutions bring company culture to life through omni-channel activation in the physical, digital and experiential space. TENSPACE is a dedicated space that leverages TENFOLD’s design approach to create in-real-life experiences for online brands. TENSPACE features one brand at a time in an experiential ‘show’ for 2-months. This revolving brick-and-mortar concept is a completely new shopping experience and acquisition platform that is changing the way consumers engage with DTC brands.

TENFOLD and TENSPACE solutions incorporate brand and culture strategy, environmental graphic design and interactive digital-display technology to create spaces that educate, inform and inspire, connecting people to place in a meaningful way. As an entrepreneurial start-up in 2014, TENFOLD has quickly become an industry-leading, award-winning firm. In 2018 and 2021, TENFOLD received Best of Show honors from the American Advertising Federation. The company was also named to the prestigious Inc. 500 in 2018 and Inc. 5000 in 2019 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation. Rachel has also been a three-time recipient of Business First’s C-Suite Award for Most Admired CEO. The award recognizes excellence and integrity. TENFOLD brings the brand and culture story to life for clients like ESPN, NBCUniversal, BlackRock, The Columbus Crew, Big Lots and Huntington National Bank among many others.

Rachel’s professional career spans nearly 30 years. She graduated from The University of Michigan in 1992 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design, and began her career as a designer. In 1997, Rachel joined the furniture industry innovator Herman Miller as Manager of Global Accounts. While helping Fortune 500 clients align their workplace strategies with their business strategies, she discovered that her true passion was business in addition to design. As a result, in 2000 she enrolled at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, earning her MBA in 2002. By 2006, Rachel was working with contract interiors provider Continental Office Environments as Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales. She resigned from the $120M company in 2014 to pursue her dream of founding and developing her own businesses.

College of Engineering ‘09

Investment Committee Chair

Jerrod is a member of the Audible team, an Amazon subsidiary, based in NYC, where he is building a corporate venture capital fund that focuses on investing in strategic, early-stage startups and supporting Audible portfolio companies. Prior to Audible, Jerrod spent four years at Amazon Web Services, where he worked on the Venture Capital BD team. Prior to Amazon, Jerrod worked in startup investing, management consulting, and education. He worked at two accelerators, including DreamIt Philadelphia and Techstars NYC as well as worked at two investment funds, including Bowery Capital and Wharton Impact Investing Partners. During this period, Jerrod also worked in management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group in NYC, where he focused on strategy and people and organization projects for financial institutions. He started his career as a science teacher with Teach for America, where he taught chemistry, physics, and physical science in Atlanta Public Schools. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University, a M.A. in Secondary Teaching from Georgia State University, and a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Fisher College of Business '09, Moritz College of Law '09

Governance Committee Chair

Lindsay Karas Stencel has been in venture capital for nearly 16 years. She is a Partner at Thompson Hine LLP running the New Ventures group in Columbus, OH where she focuses on growing venture capital, and increasing capital access generally, for entrepreneurs throughout the Midwest, representing venture firms and startups from NYC to Palo Alto. She is also the chair of the firm’s Fund Formation practice group, where she oversees venture, private equity, hedge, real estate, and other fund formation as well as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair for the Columbus Office.

As a licensed attorney in multiple states, Lindsay began her venture career on the pure deal side working in big law in in New York. After she obtained her MBA from THE Ohio State University, she shifted to a true venture role in 2008 when she joined NCT Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based out of Columbus, OH. There she worked her way up the ranks from associate and in-house counsel, to become one of the managing partners and chief legal counsel, making her one of the first female venture capital partners in the State of Ohio. There she has worked with the firm to structure 100s of transactions and proudly assisted the firm in being the top performing venture firm in the Midwest for its vintage years (2008 and 2013, respectively), according to PitchBook.

Then, in 2016, Lindsay, who is born and raised in Buffalo, NY, became engaged with Launch New York, Inc., a Buffalo-based 501(c)(3) venture development organization that works to provide mentorship and funding to seed stage businesses, industry agnostic, in the 27 westernmost counties of the State of New York. During Lindsay’s tenure with Launch NY, the firm has become the most active seed fund in the State of New York (and one of the most active in the nation), with over 90 transactions in less than three years, which resulted in Lindsay being awarded the Early Stage Dealmaker of the Year by the Upstate Capital Association of New York for 2018, the Upstate Venture Connect Community Catalyst Award for 2019, and the 2019 Investor of the Year Award from Upstate Capital Association. Lindsay was nominated for the 2020 NVCA American Spirit Award and named to the Columbus Business First 40 Under 40 and ColumbusCEO Future50. She has also twice been named to the Best Lawyers list for Business Organizations and Structuring in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Today, in addition to her above-mentioned roles, she is a co-founder of The W Fund, a women-led, women-focused investment group acutely focused on investing in women-founded and women-lead businesses across the country. She is also the founder of BOLDER INC., a non-profit organization providing wellness resources to founders and teams across the country.

Lastly, Lindsay is an Adjunct Professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, teaching students about venture capital, deal structuring and client development. Lindsay also is an active speaker internationally in the U.S., Canada and Europe, advocating for diversity and inclusion of women and minorities in finance, as well as instructing licensed attorneys and business professionals across the country on the establishment of venture firms and deal structuring.

Fisher College of Business '80

Timothy P. Keenan is an active entrepreneur who has been a principal in the building and selling of four businesses. Most recently, Timothy P. Keenan was president and chairman of the board of directors of High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi). As president, Mr. Keenan had overall strategic and operational responsibility for HPTi’s initiatives in developing systems technologies. As one of the original founders of HPTi, he helped to develop and grow HPTi into a dynamic firm known for its combination of creative design and disciplined execution. High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi) (now a subsidiary of Engility Corp) provides high performance computing, system engineering, and health care bioinformatics to Federal Government customers including the Department of Defense, Intelligence Agencies, Department of Veterans Affairs and Justice Department.

Under Mr. Keenan’s leadership, HPTi built the eighth fastest supercomputer in the world, was named one of the top 25 federal contractors by the Washington Business Journal, received the 2008 National Capital Business Ethics Award, the 2009 American Business Ethics Award and was honored with the United States Senate Productivity Quality Award Plaque of Excellence for 2006, 2007, and 2008 and the 2009 Medallion of Excellence in Quality. Additionally, HPTi has flourished to generate record financial results and was named a Top-Ten Growth Firm for 2007, 2008, and 2009 by the Private Company Index.

Mr. Keenan and HPTi display a strong commitment to industry and community outreach. This is because Mr. Keenan and HPTi believe that improving the quality of life for others improves our quality of life as well. Mr. Keenan has been an adjunct professor for GMU’s Executive MBA capstone and an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship at Georgetown University and an Entrepreneur in Residence for the McDonough School of Business. As part of this commitment, Mr. Keenan serves on the Dean’s Council of The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, the George Mason College of Science Advisory Council, and the James Madison University Deans’ Council for the College of Business.

Mr. Keenan graduated with a B.S. from The Ohio State University and earned his M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He has received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award, OSU’s Professional Achievement Award, GovCon’s Executive of the Year, the American Business Award for Best Executive, Winning Workplace’s Best Boss Award, and the Entrepreneurism Award from the Fisher College of Business at OSU. In 2008, Mr. Keenan was inducted into the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Alumni Hall of Fame.

Fisher College of Business ‘06

Michael Lee is CEO of Octopus Energy U.S. With nearly a decade in renewable energy, including working on some of the first battery storage projects and developing solar solutions for Fortune 500's internationally, Michael is an entrepreneur who believes technology can unlock cleaner and cheaper electricity all while delighting the customer. He is the co-founder of Evolve Energy, which was acquired by Octopus Energy in 2020. Michael has a background in finance. He graduated from Ohio State with a BA in Finance and holds an MBA from Harvard.

Fisher College of Business ‘97

Eric Lenard is Vice President, Global Services Finance at Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest and most comprehensive health care company. He is responsible for global accounting execution and enterprise, and employee financial services for Johnson & Johnson’s businesses across all sectors and regions with an organization of 2,500 Global Services Finance employees across 5 delivery hubs and more than 70 local offices around the globe.

Eric has been with Johnson & Johnson since 2004 holding several financial leadership roles in the company’s Vision Care, General Surgery, and Orthopaedics businesses along with 3 years as the head of Corporate Treasury and the last 3 years as the CFO for one of J&J’s newest franchises focused on developing robotic and digital solutions for surgical intervention. His accomplishments during his J&J tenure include standing up the Enterprise’s first ophthalmic pharmaceutical business; creating a controlled foreign corporation and management logistics center generating hundreds of millions of dollars of tax savings for the General Surgery franchise; leading the Spine finance organization following J&J’s acquisition of Synthes, Inc, the 2nd largest acquisition in company history; serving as the inaugural finance leader for J&J’s Global Orthopaedics Franchise; engineering $9B of capital markets financing; championing the design and execution of Supplier Financing which enabled $600M of cash flow improvements; and leading the surgical robotics organization through multiple acquisitions, strategic restructurings, and Executive Committee-level assessments; and serving as chair of the African-Ancestry Leadership Council for J&J’s Global Finance, Orthopaedics, General Surgery, and Vision Care chapters.

Prior to joining J&J, Eric worked at Procter & Gamble for 7 years.

Eric is a 1997 graduate of The Ohio State University where he simultaneously earned his BSBA and MBA in Finance, and he is a Certified Management Accountant and Certified Finance Manager. Eric is a member of the Alumni Board of Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, a former chapter president of the National Black MBA Association, a member of the Institute of Management Accountants Global Board of Directors, and a member of the Crossroads Theatre Company Board of Trustees. He has recently been honored by the National Diversity Council as one of the 2020 & 2021 Top 50 Financial Leaders in the U.S. along with receiving their 2022 Leadership Excellence Award in Healthcare. Eric has also been honored multiple times by Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, receiving their prestigious Pace Setters Executive Award in 2016, the Professional Achievement Alumni Award in 2018, the 2021 Black History Month “Living Legend” Award, and the Office of Diversity & Inclusion’s 2022 Legacy Award.

Eric is happily married, is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently lives and works in the New York area.

Fisher College of Business '79

Martin Murrer is a Partner at Muirfield Capital Global Advisors, an Alternative Asset Management firm. The firm establishes Special Purpose Vehicles around public company situations in which they deem securities to be grossly undervalued and there is a catalyst, often litigation, to unlock that value. He also engages in early stage venture investing through his family office with a focus on healthcare and clean energy.

From 1981 to 2016, Mr. Murrer worked on Wall Street as a Merger & Acquisition expert primarily as an adviser and occasionally as a principal. He worked at Goldman Sachs, DLJ, Salomon Brothers, Merrill Lynch and was a co-founder of Merger & Acquisition boutique Sagent Advisors which was eventually sold to Daiwa Securities.

He was also a Partner at AEA Investors , a private equity firm and a Board member of numerous Public and Private companies.

Mr. Murrer is also a Founder of the Fink Center for Finance and Investment at UCLA, a Board Member of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, a former Foundation member at The Ohio State University and a member of the Oversight Committee for the Endowment at The Ohio state University. Together with his brother Andrew Murrer'73, they established the Andrew and Martin Murrer professor at The Ohio State University.

He is married to Jean Ruman Murrer '80 and has three children Michael '07, Peter and Jessica and three grandchildren. 

College of Engineering '03

Gayathri Radhakrishnan is currently part of the investment team at Micron Ventures, investing from $100M AI fund. She invests in startups that are leveraging AI/ML to solve critical problems in the areas of Manufacturing, Healthcare, Automotive and AgTech.

Prior to that, she brings 20 years of multi-disciplinary experience across product management, product marketing, corporate strategy, M&A and venture investments in large Fortune 500 companies such as Dell and Corning and in startups. She has also worked as an early stage investor at Earlybird Venture Capital, a premier European venture capital fund based in Germany. She has a Masters in EE from The Ohio State University and MBA from INSEAD in France. She is also a Kauffman Fellow.

College of Arts and Sciences ‘07

Brett's practice focuses on assisting entrepreneurs in the design and optimization of their corporate strategy and roadmap for growth. He also routinely advises venture capital (VC) funds on matters related to venture investment and manages deal work with knowledge and ease. He has experience working with startups, emerging companies, VC funds, and established organizations, regarding their corporate, fundraising, and governance legal needs. His professional work ethic, responsiveness, knowledge of the law, and advocacy on behalf of clients makes him invaluable to current and prospective clients.

Brett helps lead a team of professionals who focus primarily on the venture space and deliver immense value across multiple interdisciplinary practice areas (Corporate, Intellectual Property, Tax, Securities, Data Privacy) under one roof.

As a Cincinnati native, Brett has built connections with Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky organizations of all sizes ranging from single-member LLC start-ups to nine-figure annual profit companies with hundreds of employees. He is skilled in predicting blind spots and mitigating risk and is the Chief Legal Officer (CLO) for a variety of start-ups, developing, and established companies. Brett has an extreme passion for entrepreneurialism and has dedicated his professional life to investing in the venture ecosystems both in the Midwest and all across the country.

Fisher College of Business '76

Retired, Global Aviation Director, ExxonMobil - For more than 45 years, Jesse Tyson has been a thought leader, business strategist and implementer. Through technological innovation, keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics, his career grew from an early interest in marketing and sales with initial successes in sales strategy and operations; to his regional expertise in energy policy, to leading road transportation, safety and efficiency operations at the world’s largest oil and gas corporation, ExxonMobil. Tyson’s acumen for not only business operations, but strategy, also put him in the position of leading the Global Aviation business for ExxonMobil based in Brussels, Belgium, where he worked across multiple industry groups developing strategic customer segmentation solutions, operations and shareholder return requirements. He directed a $10 billion business with clients in over 50 countries and 500 locations that delivered significant double digit returns for ExxonMobil and over $30 million per year in operating efficiencies. Mr. Tyson is an international business trailblazer, a global marketing and operations expert and a recognized name in the multinational oil and gas industry.

Post retirement from ExxonMobil, Jesse became President & CEO of the National Black MBA Association, an organization of over 20,000 members and over 500 corporate and university partners. In this role, his primary function was to create employment opportunities for its members as well as lead in the development of future leaders. He retired from this position in 2019 and now spends his time overseeing his entrepreneurial interests in hospitality and food service as a multi-brand franchisee. Jesse is currently the CEO of T&S Food Services, LLC.

Jesse grew up as a sharecropper and, throughout his career, he has generously focused on giving back to create educational opportunities for underprivileged youth. To this end, he has established endowments at Lane College, Spelman College and The Ohio State University in honor of those who open doors for him.

College of Arts & Sciences ‘93

Elizabeth “Betsy” Ziegler is the first female CEO of 1871, now the Number 1 ranked university affiliated-tech incubator in the world.

Previous to 1871, Betsy was the Chief Innovation Officer at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, responsible for portfolio innovation as well as integrating technology into the Kellogg educational experience. From 2011 through September 2015, she served as associate dean of degree programs and dean of students.

Prior to Kellogg, she served as a principal in McKinsey & Company’s Chicago office where she led the firm’s Life Insurance Operations and Technology practice and co-led its Financial Institutions Operations and Technology practice.

Ziegler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and received a B.A. in economics from The Ohio State University, where she graduated with distinction. She is a member of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry Boards of Directors and an advisor and investor in many young technology companies.