Links:

• Twitter

Author | Columnist and Regular Contributor at Forbes

Bio:

Jerry Bowyer is a Forbes contributor, contributing editor of AffluentInvestor.com, and Senior Fellow in Business Economics at The Center for Cultural Leadership. Jerry has compiled an impressive record as a leading thinker in finance and economics. He worked as an auditor and a tax consultant with Arthur Anderson, as Vice President of the Beechwood Company which is the family office associated with Federated Investors, and has consulted in various privatization efforts for Allegheny County, Pa.

He founded the influential economic think tank, the Allegheny Institute, and has lectured extensively at universities, businesses and civic groups. Jerry has been a member of three investment committees, among which is Benchmark Financial, Pittsburgh’s largest financial services firm. Jerry had been a regular commentator on Fox Business News and Fox News. He was formerly a CNBC Contributor, has guest-hosted The Kudlow Report, and has written for CNBC.com, National Review Online and The Wall Street Journal, as well as many other publications. He is the author of The Bush Boom and more recently The Free Market Capitalist’s Survival Guide, published by HarperCollins.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR

Links: 

• LinkedIn

Managing Partner | Collab Capital

Jewel Burks Solomon is an advocate for representation and access in the technology industry. As co-founder of Partpic, a startup designed to streamline the purchase of maintenance and repair parts using computer vision, Jewel and her team built groundbreaking technology poised to change the way people everywhere locate products. Partpic raised over $2 million in seed funding from notable investors like AOL co-founder, Steve Case, and Comcast Ventures, and integrated its software into mobile apps/websites of large parts distributors and retailers. Partpic was acquired by Amazon in late 2016 and the technology now powers visual search for replacement parts in the Amazon Mobile Shopping app. 

Jewel is a proud board member at Goodie Nation and the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project, and spends much of her free time mentoring startup founders and angel investing. 

Jewel has been featured in notable publications such as Forbes, Wired, TechCrunch, Essence, Glamour, and Business Insider. Prior to founding Partpic, Jewel served in management, enterprise sales, and strategic diversity roles at McMaster-Carr Industrial Supply and Google, Inc. Jewel is a native of Nashville TN, and graduate of Howard University. She is a member of the 2019 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. She currently resides in Atlanta, GA with her husband, Zekarias.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR

 Links:

• LinkedIn

CEO and Principal | Colliers International in Raleigh

Bio:

Jim’s responsibilities include: company vision and strategy, client representation, business development and chief investment strategist. Prior to founding Anthony & Co. in 1987, Jim served as a consultant with the Grubb & Ellis Company in Los Angeles, California, from 1979 to 1983, winning the “Rookie of the Year” Award in 1980. In 1983, Jim moved to Raleigh to be Leasing and Management Director for Carolantic Realty. In 1998 he acquired Allenton Commercial in Durham, NC and merged it into Anthony & Co. Project offices were opened in Myrtle Beach, SC, Atlanta, GA, Niagara Falls, NY and Burlington, NC. The company headquarters is in Raleigh, NC.

Jim has one of the most diverse and distinguished commercial real estate track records in the Southeastern, US. For over 30 years he has worked with nearly every property type in ten states. His expertise is highly sought after by institutions, businesses, investors, developers and government.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR

Links: 

• LinkedIn

Bitcoin advocate, Developer and Author

Previously working as a software developer in a number of industries, Song joined Monetas, a crypto-finance software company, in 2014. After a one-year stint, Song joined Armory Technologies, an open-source bitcoin wallet management platform, to develop a bitcoin wallet intended for enterprise business. He then became the principal architect for Paxos, a New York-based financial institution and stablecoin issuer.

In January 2018 Song joined Blockchain Capital, a company focused on funding projects based on blockchain technology, as a bitcoin fellow. In 2019 he published “Programming Bitcoin,” a book that aims to teach readers the basics of bitcoin. In addition to his book, he runs a for-profit company, Programming Blockchain, that instructs students around the globe on different techniques to develop bitcoin.

In January 2019, Song began lecturing as a professor of two graduate-level courses at the University of Texas at Austin. He also began serving as an expert witness in certain events involving bitcoin.

Song is well known for arguing that blockchains have limited use cases. More specifically, he has argued that the blockchain’s sole use case is for “sound money” – which is how he characterizes bitcoin. He has been a vocal critic of permissioned blockchains, alternative cryptocurrencies and the argument that Ethereum will decentralize the internet.

Song has made several bets about the future of blockchain with Joseph Lubin, an Ethereum co-founder and the founder of ethereum venture studio ConsenSys.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR

Links: 

• LinkedIn

Co-Founder and CEO | Cornerstone Technologies

Fisher graduated from the University of Memphis in 1995 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Upon graduation, he founded a company specializing in Internet software development for enterprises using a new programming language released that year called Java.

In 1997, Fisher designed the web-based event management solution that became the core of EventU, now in use by thousands of non-profit organizations and Fortune 500 companies.

In 1998 after a trip to Romania, he sold his business (dba ServiceU) and moved to Romania to start Cornerstone Technologies, an outsourcing software development firm. While living in Bucharest, Fisher helped build churches, organize Bible studies in government and organize Romania’s annual National Prayer Dinner in Parliament. During the era of the dot-com bubble, Cornerstone Technologies was blessed to do highly specialized software development for a number of Fortune 500 companies.

In 2002, Fisher acquired the intellectual property for an application he developed for Regions Bank and co-founded Asentinel. Fisher is the principal architect and patent inventor for Asentinel’s telecom expense management (TEM) solutions. In 2003, Gartner began tracking the TEM industry which grew to over $2B by 2015. In 2008, Fisher received the first of his patents and successfully licensed his patents with several publicly traded competitors.

In 2013, he left Asentinel to again be the CEO of Cornerstone Technologies. In 2014, he finished his Master of Divinity at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary and co-founded Highland Harvesters, the largest apple orchard in Ethiopia located among thirty-two unreached, unengaged people groups. In 2016, he became the Executive in Residence at Emanuel University where he is pursuing graduate work on “business as missions”. Currently, he is overseeing over a dozen kingdom businesses on five continents. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR

Links: 

• LinkedIn

Managing Director | Koch Disruptive Technologies

Jason Illian is the Managing Director of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture and growth arm of Koch Industries. KDT’s role is to invest in technology companies that disrupt and transform Koch’s core businesses and expand into new platforms and capabilities. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and crypto, bio IT and genomics, and industrial robotics are just a few segments being explored by KDT. Jason serves on the board of D2iQ, the cloud-native leader in open-source applications and Kubernetes management, and as an advisor to 8VC and Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest fund.

Jason has 20+ years of experience leading and building technology companies. Prior to assuming this role, Mr. Illian was the Founder and CEO of BookShout, the world’s leading B2B e-book company which was acquired by a private equity group. In addition to being a Senior Advisor/Entrepreneur-in-Residence to the PE group, Jason has advised and consulted for numerous investment and technology companies.

Jason is also a published author and nationally-renown speaker. Jason has presented at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) re: Invent conference, the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference, and hundreds of other organizations. He has been featured in Bloomberg, The New York Times, VentureBeat and regularly does interviews on behalf of KDT and Koch.

Jason graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas Christian University with a BBA in International Finance. He continued his education with TCU and the London School of Economics, held the distinguished honor of being named one of the top 20 students in America by USA Today, was a Rhodes scholar finalist, and was an NCAA Academic All-American while being captain of the TCU football team.

When Jason isn’t spending time with his family or digging deeper in his faith, Jason is studying blockchain and cryptocurrencies, AI, medical technologies, robotics and manufacturing and other future technologies. He lives in Wichita, KS. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN INVESTOR