Crew

Arlan is an emerging venture capital fund manager, and tour manager to Atlantic Records recording artist Janine & The Mixtape. Having founded and published the internationally distributed indie magazine INTERLUDE, and toured extensively as a live music production professional, she enters the venture investing world from an unconventional path. Arlan is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are of color, women, and/or LGBT. When she’s not writing about herself in the 3rd person, she enjoys yelling at teenagers from her porch, writing the ‘L Word’ fanfic twitter page @ModernLWord, and watching the hell out of some ‘General Hospital.’ 👊🏾

Christie is Partner + Chief of Staff of Backstage Capital. She is responsible for guiding our Crew to ensure Backstage runs smoothly towards its mission as well as joining Managing Partner, Arlan Hamilton, in making investment decisions (aka signing Headliners!) Christie has extensive experience creating valuable partnerships between startups and Fortune 500 top 20 corporations, and joins Backstage from her role as Venture Development Manager at Verizon Ventures. Christie holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from San Jose State University, and an MBA from University of Phoenix.

Kelli is the Head of People at FabFitFun. Previously, she founded Sundry Style, an e-commerce marketplace that features a range of products by emerging black fashion designers and artisans, and co-founded Paradigm, a consulting firm that has helped dozens of top tech companies recruit and retain women and minorities.

Kelli practiced corporate law at Fenwick & West, where she worked on several of the tech industry’s largest M&A deals. In 2015, Kelli was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for her work advancing diversity in tech and in the legal profession. Kelli is a graduate of Rice University, cum laude, and Stanford Law School.

She also enjoys hosting dinner parties and exploring Los Angeles. 🥘🌞🌴

Earnest Sweat is the investment manager at PLD Ventures. His career has consisted of a blend of real estate, finance, and technology-focused roles. Prior to his current role, Earnest served as an Investor-in-Residence at Backstage Capital where he focused on the technical and business model due diligence of investment opportunities. Earnest began his career at BMO Capital Markets as an equity research analyst covering REITs. A former startup founder and tech blogger, he’s passionate about serving as a startup advisor for high-potential startup entrepreneurs and has worked with accelerators, including Camelback Ventures and GSVLabs, assisting startups with fundraising and reaching product-market fit. Earnest holds a Bachelors of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Columbia University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Bryan is a Design Principal at Backstage — he works with our portfolio companies on high-value design projects (pitch decks, sprints, product, etc.) to help them succeed. He also produces + co-hosts Backstage Capital’s 2 podcasts (The Boostrapped VC + Mission & Values) and leads overall brand design and content for Green Room. Bryan’s past work with startups ranges from helping the early Pinterest team with HTML email campaigns to leading visual design and co-leading product at Zapier (YC S12). He holds a BFA from CalArts and has been a touring + recording banjoist in Nashville, a film/TV composer, and a music editor for the Reba McEntire sitcom, of which Arlan is a fan.

Nahid is a Senior Software Engineer at Cisco Systems, creating new ventures in the Enterprise IoT space. She has 7+ years of experience in systems, software, and IoT products both in startups and Fortune 100 companies. Earlier, she founded Litehouse, a voice platform for connected home products. She mentored startups at Intel for the TBS reality TV show America’s Greatest Makers.

A native of Bangladesh, Nahid started her career in the U.S. at Intel where she was quickly promoted for going above and beyond her role to propose and lead a technology roadmap around the Maker Movement.

She’s spoken at conferences including TEDx and Women Techmakers Summit, and was featured in GigaOM, MacLife Magazine, and EEWeb. Nahid built and sold a mobile messaging startup during her college days at Bangladesh.

Anastasia is CEO and co-founder of a newly established company, bosa, a health and wellness app that helps anticipate and prevent burnout. She was the 2015 Internal Program and Culture Fellow for GRID110’s inaugural fashion-tech accelerator cohort.

Anastasia is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy. When not traversing Los Angeles via public transit, Anastasia can be found enjoying Sunday Fundays with her closest friends, daydreaming about cold-pressed juice and ice cream, and mentoring. 😋🍏🍓🥗

Arnulfo “Chacho” Valadez, Jr., fulfills the important role of assisting Backstage Managing Partner, Arlan Hamilton, ensuring operations run smoothly and successfully. An aspiring venture capitalist soon to complete his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration + Marketing, he has experience with running day-to-day operations at SMBs, business development, and sales. The son of an immigrant, Chacho has a strong desire to highlight diversity, especially amongst the Hispanic Entrepeneur community. You might also find him fishing for bass + pike with his wife, working on his golf swing, cheering on Wisconsin sports teams, and exploring his new home of Metro-Detroit. 🎣🏌🏽

Susan is an angel investor and startup advisor in San Francisco, where she has a front-row seat to an amazing variety of new ventures. She is passionate about making connections and helping people meet their potential. 

Susan believes that diversity is an essential and under-utilized asset to all businesses. She focuses on enterprise businesses and technology. Her background is in search and natural language processing technology and her operational experience spans product development roles from coding to product management at both startups and Fortune 500 companies like PayPal and Salesforce.

When not investing and advising, Susan can be found climbing one of San Francisco’s many hills, frequenting the ever-growing array of 3rd-wave coffee shops around town, and singing with the Loose Interpretations. ⛰☕🎤

With years of experience on both sides of the table as an investor and as a CEO, Rob is a valued investor in, and advisor to, Backstage Capital. He is a Managing Partner at Treehouse Capital and an active investor and board member with numerous private and public companies and investment funds. Rob holds a law degree from Stanford and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia.

Dianne is a wanderer who is currently based in Los Angeles. Her background is in the entertainment industry. She graduated from Full Sail University and has been working in film, television and theater for over a decade. Music is one her many passions. She met Arlan during a magical night out in Hollywood at the Hotel Cafe—well, in the alley behind the Hotel Cafe—and they have been working together in some capacity ever since. Currently, Dianne is working on the operations side of our Cover program. She is also a founder at for&by, which is a growing database of LGBTQ+ entertainment industry professionals who are creating authentic content. 🤷

Amrit is a CBIR (Community Builder-in-Residence) at Backstage Capital, where she is responsible for creating resources for Backstage Headliners through vendor partnerships, and internal content and community building initiatives. Alongside her work with Backstage, Amrit operates CMYK Ventures, her agency that works with consumer-driven brands and investors. Previously, she worked with funds like Collaborative Fund and RRE Ventures, six advertising agencies, and startups like CreativeMornings and Meetup to build communities around creative companies, entrepreneurs, and venture capital funds.

Jason is an entrepreneur and investor based in Austin, TX. His first company, FeedMagnet, was acquired in 2014 by Bazaarvoice. As CTO, Jason helps manage and grow May Designs, an e-commerce paper goods company. He supports Backstage Capital as a platform mentor advising our portfolio founders and others within our network. He’s also a husband and father of two. Read his bold perspective on topics like privilege, racial justice, and adoption on Medium.