Mark Achler is Managing Director of MATH Venture Partners. Additionally, Mark teaches Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.

Prior to MATH, Mark was the Senior Vice President of New Business, Strategy and Innovation for Redbox and was an early employee at Apple. He is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four companies as well as being a partner in an earlier venture fund called Kettle Partners.

Mark has an undergraduate degree in Social Studies Education from Purdue University and is a frequent speaker, resource and ardent champion for the entrepreneurial community. Mark is also the co-author of Exit Right: How to Sell Your Startup, Maximize Your Return and Build Your Legacy.

Robert L. Fealy is the Founder and Managing Director of Limerick Investments, which invests in early-stage technology companies providing solutions for the educational and health services markets. In 2016, he founded ALUMinate, Inc., a provider of data analytics solutions to universities, colleges, and nonprofit institutions. Aluminate was sold to Strattam Capital in 2021, and eventually merged with Strattam’s portfolio company, Affinaquest, where Bob serves on the Board of Directors and Compensation Committee. He also is a member of the Board of Directors of Churchill Downs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHDN), where he Chairs the Nominating and Governance Committee and serves on the Executive and Compensation Committees, and he is a member of the Board of Directors of Panduit, Inc., a leading global provider of commercial building infrastructure and network solutions. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the Lindner College of Business and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Commercial Science degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2013.

Larry is founder of Blue Point Advisory Services, a financial consulting firm focused on start-ups. He has over 30 years of experience as an investor, corporate analyst and venture capitalist. He spent almost 4 years as CFO of Freedom Fries, a new search engine and news aggregator.

Larry previously served as an SVP at First Analysis, where he led investment efforts and provided research coverage of leading private and publicly-traded companies in the financial technology and digital marketing sectors. He was an observer on the board of Freeosk, Movero, Knitting Factory and advised other companies for First Analysis. He has also been a member of the board of Solve, Inc. He served as an independent member of the board of Incapital (nor Insperex) for 20 years and served on its audit and compensation committees. His work has been cited for excellence in the StarMine analyst awards.

Larry just completed his 7^th year as part of the New Venture Challenge Team at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Prior to joining First Analysis in 1999, he was acting CFO at Doculabs, a Chicago-based information technology consulting firm. Earlier in his career, he was a consultant for Ganymede Corp., an associate in corporate finance at UBS, and a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. He earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Outside of work he curls, bikes, sails, and is a photographer.

Ben Balson is a people focused operations executive. During the bulk of his career spent building and selling Automotive Keys Group, an automotive parts and tech company, he fell in love with the people operations side of the business. During his time there he co-founded Workfriendly, a fractional HR and recruiting firm, where he now serves as COO helping growth minded business take care of their most important asset, their people.

Mark Cassata is a Senior Vice President with CBRE’s office occupier business based in downtown Chicago. He has been directly involved in over 3M square feet in office lease transactions with consideration more than $2.5B, including some of the most significant individual lease transactions. Separate from CBRE Inc., Mark has been acquiring and redeveloping multi-family properties thought Chicago for over 12 years and is an investor in multiple alternatives including venture capital, private equity, and angel.

Mark sits on multiple non-profit Boards including Chicago Scholars (Board of Directors), City of Hope (Founding Member and Chair of Chicago Board), and Sigma Phi Epsilon (Board of Governors).  He lives in the city and is happily married with a young daughter named Camille and a dog named Roger.