Chairman | Shared-X

John is Chairman of Shared-X, an innovative agriculture company aiming to close the yield gap in emerging markets. He is a former Senior Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who he joined in 2001. John was a member of the partner team that conceptualized and launched the firm’s greentech investment initiative. Since then, the KPCB greentech team, including John, has invested in more than 50 companies across a wide variety of sectors, including agtech. John co-ranthe KPCB Green Growth Fund, which invests in and supports growth-stage greentech companies.

In addition to the listed companies, John also works with several stealth greentech companies, and collaborates with partners in connection with other portfolio companies. Before joining KPCB, John was a managing director and head of technology investment banking for the Western United States at Salomon Smith Barney. He also served on the investment committees for Salomon’ s venture capital direct investment fund and CitiGroup’ s venture capital fund-of-funds. Earlier in his career, John was a partner at the law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, where he was head of the firm’s venture capital practice group and co-head of its information technology practice group. He also served on the investment committee for the firm’ s venture capital fund. John has a BA in Economics and a JD from the University of Michigan.

CEO | The Signatry

John is a speaker, writer, and film producer. He and his wife Renée started Gospel Patrons after seeing God powerfully use John’s first book, Gospel Patrons, to inspire thousands of business leaders and young professionals to discover their purpose and calling in God’s kingdom. John now speaks at conferences and events, continues to write books and articles, and leads the team of creatives at gospelpatrons.org

Filmmaker | Kingdom Studios

Along with his brother, Jon began his career as a teenager working for ESPN as a camera operator in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Jon worked as a sports cameraman and covered University of Alabama games all over the country and also worked with ESPN College Football Primetime, FOX NFL, and the NBA. In 2002, he founded a production company with his brother, Andrew. Their first ventures were commercials, documentaries and music videos. The brothers soon were directing videos and producing concerts and television programs for platinum recording artists such as Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Casting Crowns, Switchfoot, Skillet and others and received eleven GMA Dove Awards nominations and 3 wins for Music Video of the Year.

Alongside their award-winning music videos, Jon and Andrew have also produced and directed several documentaries. These include the multi-award winning 9/11 story, “The Cross and the Towers”.

In 2010, Jon and Andrew began exclusively developing dramatic feature films. Their features have all opened in the top ten box office on opening weekend and they have received the coveted A+ Cinema Score twice. Their features include OCTOBER BABY, MOMS’ NIGHT OUT, WOODLAWN and the 2018 surprise hit I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, which became the #1 independent film of 2018, earning over $83 million at the box office.

In 2019, Jon and Andrew launched Kingdom Studios, alongside their partners Kevin Downes and Tony Young, with a first-look deal with Lionsgate. The first film from that venture is I STILL BELIEVE, a biopic about CCM megastar Jeremy Camp slated for 3/20/20.

Jon serves as Chief Executive Officer at Kingdom Studios as well as writes and co-directs feature films with Andrew. He is also the author of the upcoming book For Love and Honor, which tells the amazing true story of his grandfather Red Erwin, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor in WWII. It is slated for publication in 2020.

Links: 

• Launch Capital Partners

Co-Founder and President | Launch Capital Partners

Jimmy is Co-Founder and President of Launch Capital Partners. He holds an MBA from Bellarmine University and an MSBC from Spalding University. He is PMP certified from the project management insitute and has served as an adjunct professor in graduate business school at Spalding University. He spent a decade at a Fortune 50 company, where he led Product Development, IT automation and reporting teams. He used his project management background to begin rehabbing houses in 2014. In 2015, he left his corporate role to lead launch Capital full time.

Links: 

• LinkedIn

Executive Director | Union Foundation

Dr. Joel Morris is the Executive Director of Union Foundation, overseeing the strategic and operational direction of the organisation. He is a leader and trustee of Grace Community Church, Porthcawl. He has been a missionary working in 28 countries with Operation Mobilisation before obtaining a doctorate and beginning a career in Materials Engineering which took him from Aerospace to the Nuclear sector.

Prior to joining Union, he was Assistant Professor at the Seoul National University in South Korea. He has extensive experience in bringing technology research to market, and in creating industrially sponsored University projects. He also started his own company specialising in aerospace technology, spun out of Swansea University.

Joel is married to Hye Lim and they have three children.

CEO | SAAD Investment Holdings

Bio:

Johan Du Preez began his career in the USA (California, 1991) where he specialised in the turnaround of large retail “drug” stores (for American Drug Stores, a retail group that owned more than 700 stores). He then moved on to managed healthcare (medical insurance and risk management) and was part of a core team that created a national claims processor (RxAmerica) allowing pharmacies to submit their claims to medical insurers online and in real-time (via a satellite link).

Upon his return to South Africa he was instrumental in the turnaround of Sanlam Health (health insurance, CEO 1999 – 2001), led Glacier by Sanlam (retail investments, CEO 2002 – 2004) and headed the start-up of the financing company Quince Capital (CEO 2006 – 2009).

He recently acted as the CEO of the then JSE listed pharmaceutical company Cipla Medpro South Africa (August 2012 to June 2013) and during this time concluded a R4.5bn transaction with Cipla India that saw the delisting of Cipla Medpro. During his involvement with the Sanlam group he served on the Executive committees of Sanlam Life and Sanlam Investment Management.

Johan obtained the degree M. Pharm in 1989 (University of Pretoria) and holds an MBA from National University in San Diego, California (1996).