AI: A Lawyer's Ally or Adversary?

Ray is a seasoned venture capitalist with over 20 years of investing experience across a wide range of industries and geographies. Before joining Alumni Ventures, Ray was a partner and adviser at several global venture funds focusing on AI, Web3, FinTech and SaaS investment opportunities across the U.S. and Asia Pacific. Earlier, he spent more than 10 years in the corporate venture space: He was the managing director of HP’s new business ventures, responsible for startup technology evaluation, new business incubation, VC relationships, and minority investments, and earlier at Cisco Systems, holding several senior positions leading investment, M&A, internal incubation, and global consulting. Previously, Ray was a managing partner of a leading Internet consulting firm working with Fortune 1000 companies across North America. He earned a dual MBA degree from the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University.

Jack Statza brings deep-tech venture investing expertise across sectors and stages to his work at Alumni Ventures. He was previously an early-stage investor at Allstate Strategic Ventures, the venture capital arm of Allstate Insurance Company, primarily focusing on AI/ML, Blockchain, and Enterprise SaaS. Before Allstate, Jack worked in investment banking at Lazard and at Livingstone in Chicago, executing M&A transactions for technology clients. He was also a consultant at the Northern Trust Company, where he gained a deep understanding of the financial markets that blockchain is beginning to disrupt. Jack has been deeply involved in the blockchain space ever since he first mined Bitcoin in 2010 and is a personal crypto investor in many altcoin projects. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he is a CFA charterholder.

Michael has led legal and business teams in a variety of settings, from large financial services companies to start-ups. As a Managing Director at TIAA/Nuveen, he helped grow the asset management business to over $900 billion AUM, by forming new boutique registered investment advisors (RIAs) and developing alternative investment products distributed in the US and internationally across retail, institutional and high net worth clients.  From there he co-founded an innovative investment advisory platform designed to align the interests of agencies, communities and institutional investors in large-scale infrastructure projects, serving as GC/COO and successfully raising institutional capital.  Michael’s 25+ years of experience includes legal practice for major U.S. law firms (Faegre Drinker and Richards Layton) and other diversified financial services companies (Northern Trust and The Hartford). He is a CFA Charterholder and former U.S. Army Lieutenant. He earned a BA (English) from Dartmouth, a JD (Law) from William & Mary, an LLM (Taxation) from Villanova, and an MBA (Finance) from Wharton. Michael has a lifelong interest in arts and education, previously serving as a Director of a community arts foundation that founded and operated an arts-based Charter School, as well as recently developing and leading a multi-part training program for corporate employees to foster diversity and inclusion through the lens of art. Current initiatives include serving as a Director of Joy2Learn, a non-profit organization promoting the use of the arts in K-12 education, and advising education technology start-ups.

Brendan Gutierrez McDonnell is a forward, visionary thinker, solving legal and business issues affecting public and private growth companies. Brendan is on the leading edge of ushering disruption into the traditional practice of law by leveraging technology, including artificial intelligence, to more efficiently serve his clients. Brendan regularly counsels corporate clients on mergers and acquisitions and public and private financings, including private equity and venture capital transactions. He also advises companies on a variety of everyday business issues, including advice on securities laws, corporate laws (including director and officer duties), executive compensation plans and general corporate contracts. He has worked with clients at every stage of development, from initial formation to Fortune 100 status. Brendan works with clients across a range of industries, including technology, manufacturing, specialty chemicals, transportation and logistics, creative services, and footwear and apparel.

Tracy has more than a decade of experience counseling industry innovators and the world’s leading technology companies on their most transformative and complex intellectual property transactions, including asset carve outs, spinouts, patent portfolio acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and strategic investments. Clients turn to her at all stages of growth, from small startups licensing technology to help launch and grow their business to large public companies seeking targeted advice on unique technology transactions matters.

Tracy also advises clients on licensing matters, including generative artificial intelligence strategy and risks, settlement agreements, university licensing agreements, joint development agreements, and other agreements pertaining to technology licensing, development, and distribution. She has particular expertise in technology-driven industries, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, connected devices, enterprise and consumer software, semiconductors, digital media, clean energy, ecommerce, data and analytics, and social media.