Meet the Creator
James Marciano
James Marciano is a lifelong entrepreneur. He founded three Internet companies between 1995 and 1999, including one of the first social networks on the web (TheSquare). He raised seed capital and venture capital for two of his startups, and successfully exited all three by 2001. He then semi-retired to the role of a roll-up-your-sleeves angel investor from 2000 to 2015, where he often provided the first and only capital before the company was acquired (or folded). Along the way, the investment bankers he hired to help sell his companies invariably disappointed him.
After living for the better part of 20 years in NYC, James’ family moved to the bucolic suburbs of Bucks County, PA. With his children enrolled in elementary school, he decided it was the right time to start a new company. Reflecting upon the poor experiences he had with M&A advisors, he set out to build the kind of firm that he wished he’d been able to find. One that was built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, where effort, creativity, and kindness trumped arrogant "old boy" networks that accepted failed M&A processes as the norm. His new firm, Tuck Advisors, was born in September 2016 and focuses on sell-side and buy-side M&A, primarily for healthcare and education companies leveraging technology.
James graduated from Harvard College with an AB in Social Psychology, and from Dartmouth with an MBA from the Tuck School of Business.
Meet Our Guests
Carla Larin
Carla currently works as the managing partner and founder of Northern Pine Partners– a seed fund looking to acquire and run businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. Carla’s background in financial services and operations consulting is impressive. Carla worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman Sachs Hong Kong before moving and becoming an associate at Oliver Wyman. She graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College with a BA in Economics and Chinese with Honors and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Michael Douglas
Mike Douglas is a Partner at the Boston-area law firm of Gennari Aronson, LLP. He works at the intersection of business and law, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, and general corporate and securities matters. He has deep experience in negotiating and structuring complex transactions for clients at all stages of growth, from angel-funded and venture-backed early-stage companies to large public corporations. Mike received his undergraduate degree in Psychology from Tufts, and his law degree from Boston College.
Tom Wisniewski
Tom is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Newark Venture Partners (NVP), a venture fund focused on seed-stage B2B software that is based in Newark, NJ. NVP is backed by Amazon, Prudential and a number of other notable investors, entrepreneurs and politicians. NVP is actively investing out of its $80M NVP Fund II targeting investments from $1-2M. Tom also serves as Managing Partner of RosePaul Investments family office that invests in tech start-ups and VC/PE funds. RosePaul has made direct investments in over 30 technology companies, and 12 venture capital funds. Prior to this Tom was a Partner with several management consulting firms including Baldwin Bell Green (BBG) and Mitchel Madison Group where he focused on Financial Services, Technology and Private Equity clients.
Tom started his career at Morgan Stanley in technology development and investment banking. Tom holds a BA in Physics and Philosophy from Clark University and an MBA from Dartmouth. He lives in NYC with his wife and two children.
Aditi Krishnamurthy
Aditi is an Associate at Summit Partners, a large, Boston-based growth equity firm. She focuses on the healthcare and life sciences industries. She was previously an Investment Banking Analyst in the Life Sciences group at Wells Fargo Securities. Outside of the office, Aditi volunteers with Minds Matter Boston and The Educational Justice Initiative. She graduated from Amherst College where she majored in Chemistry and French.
Caroline Lippman
Caroline works as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley, specializing in Consumer and Retail. Caroline’s first step into the financial sector was over her Sophomore summer as a Summer Analyst at a small M&A firm. Before Wall Street, Caroline coordinated a summer program for low-income, high-achieving high school students interested in journalism. Caroline holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Princeton University, where she took part in the Certificate Program in Finance, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2019.
Obinna Arizor
Obinna is currently a Senior Associate at JP Morgan Chase and an Admissions Consultant at Menlo Coaching. At Menlo Coaching, Obinna leverages his training as a Tuck Admissions Associate (student interviewer) at his alma mater, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, to coach applicants to refine their stories and excel in their MBA admissions and job interviews.
Prior to attending Tuck, Obinna worked for five years on both the for-profit and not-for-profit sides of the education sector in New York City at Faith Christian Academy and iMentor. In addition, he has done stints at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs. In addition to the MBA from Tuck, he holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Binghamton University (SUNY) and a Master of Management Studies (MMS) from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
He is a native of New York City, and spends his free time traveling, dining, listening to music/podcasts, mentoring, and improving his photography skills.
Aarti Khullar
Dr. Aarti Khullar is a licensed clinical psychologist who co-founded The Shrink Space in 2019. Prior to The Shrink Space she worked in university mental health and private practice, where she experienced first-hand the challenges clinicians and students face when facilitating and accessing behavioral health referrals. In October of 2020, The Shrink Space was acquired by ProtoCall Services, a provider of mental health services to a number of industry verticals, including colleges and universities. Dr. Khullar continues to work at ProtoCall where she is focused on the development of The Shrink Space, as well as the integration of ProtoCall's suite of behavioral health solutions.
Parsa Rezvani
Parsa is the Co-Founder and CEO of GoSchoolBox, which is an education administration program that offers a platform that allows schools to streamline and automate their tutoring operations. After Parsa’s parents decided to immigrate to the U.S. from Iran in search of improved educational opportunities, Parsa developed a passion for using technology to improve the education industry and became an entrepreneur in the education space. Prior to his current role, Parsa Co-Founded and was the CEO of Tutorfly, a student tutoring platform that connects parents looking for tutors with high school students and college-aged students who tutor. Parsa received his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Entrepreneurship from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2018.
Karen Elders
Karen Elders is the Co-Founder of Launch Career Strategies, a career coaching firm based in Darien, CT. LCS’s services include all aspects of career discovery and preparation including discovering skills and career path options, developing a resume, elevator pitch and cover letter, effective networking, organizational skills, application strategy, interviewing skills, negotiating an offer, and balancing finances as a young professional. She is also the host of Top of the Pile, a podcast that aims to provide career advice for young professionals through conversations with HR leaders, hiring managers and professionals of all levels who’ve found success across a variety of industries.