BeaconLive competitors

Firoz H. Lalji has lived the ultimate American success story. Born of Indian ancestry in the East African country of Uganda, Lalji became the principal provider for his household at 24 when Idi Amin ousted his family from their home and their sugar-cane processing and coffee plantation business. Lalji immigrated with his family to Canada in 1971, completely impoverished. He banked on his finance skills honed while earning his degree at the London School of Economics to navigate the sea of obstacles in his entrepreneurial ambition. In Vancouver, BC, he swiftly built a life for his family, founding the successful Kits Cameras photographic retailer chain in 1973 that eventually numbered 225 locations in both Canada and the Unites States. Lalji moved to Washington state in 1981 and, following the sale of Kits in 1997, he co-founded Zones, Inc. in 1988--a nationwide provider of progressive technology solutions to business and public sectors. In 1989, he found the real estate investment company Fana Capital Corporation. Lalji had reinvented and revolutionized Zones, shaping the company into the fifth largest private company headquartered in Washington for 2013. In hopes of fueling success for other emerging minority entrepreneurs, Zones, under Lalji's leadership, was a founding corporate partner of the University of Washington's annual one-week immersive Minority Business Executive Program. Lalji additionally established the Program for African Leadership, a public charity which supports the development of the next generation of African leaders by providing funding for 15 participants at the London School of Economics annually, as well as other programs to benefit his home continent of Africa.

Donald Massaro is responsible for managing Rainmaker’s overall operations and driving company strategy. A renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur and leader, Don has a 30 year track record of successfully leading both public and privately-held cutting-edge technology-based companies, and bringing innovative products to market. Prior to Rainmaker, Massaro held the position of CEO of Sendmail, a leader in messaging infrastructure serving the world’s largest corporations. Mr. Massaro has been a founder and CEO of six Silicon Valley technology companies including Reconnex, Yotta Navigation, Silicon Gaming, Inversion Development Corp, Metaphor Computer Systems and Shugart.

Pat Donnellan is a CEO at Lumeta Corp. She has worked as Chief Executive Officer at Aep Networks. Pat works or has worked as President at STEEL CONNECT, INC.. She studied at NUI Galway.

Jeremy Friedman was Co-Founder and CEO of Schoology, the nation’s leading K-12 learning management and assessment platform. Jeremy co-founded Schoology alongside Bill Kindler, Ryan Hwang, and Tim Trinidad while earning his BA in Economics at Washington University in St. Louis. Jeremy believes that education technology should improve the learning experience and enable educators in K-12 schools and districts to achieve their own vision of successful personalized learning. Today, Jeremy focuses on managing Schoology's product growth strategy within PowerSchool. He works closely with customers to understand requirements and opportunities for innovation, guiding Schoology’s product vision to ensure that users and customers are able to continue advancing what is possible in education.

Mark Tacchi is the founder and CEO of Vendini, a company that builds software to provide an end-to-end ticketing solution that makes the business of live events simple. The company’s all-in-one ticketing solution is used by theaters, music and event venues, and music and art festivals across the country. Earning his degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1991, Mark began his career working for NeXT. After working for Apple following the NeXT acquisition in 1996, Tacchi decided to embrace his entrepreneurial side and co-founded Hipbone, a company that allowed users to co-navigate the web together in the earlier days of the Internet. While leading the company to its acquisition by CRM software company KANA in 2004, Tacchi was also building his next (and current) venture, a passion project called Vendini. Tacchi created Vendini as a way to give back to the theater and live event space, using his programming know-how to create a new and easier way for venues to simplify the business aspects behind live events. Founded in 2001, the company began as a solution directed towards theaters and playhouses, and has now expanded to over 1,800 venues across music and sports venues, nightclubs, non-profit organizations, art galleries and music and art festivals around the world. Mark lives in San Francisco with his wife, two kids and French Bulldog, and is an “across-the-board” art lover with a strong passion for the performing arts, live music and art galleries.