Enhancing Startup Ecosystem Performance
Core Team

JF Gauthier
Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of Startup Genome. He is the world’s leading voice in innovation ecosystem development, having advised more than 100 governments and private-public partnerships across 35 countries.
He has founded five businesses and led others across two continents and three sectors (Tech, Life Sciences and Cleantech), achieving two exits plus one at scaleup stage. He is also an active angel investor and previously worked in corporate innovation, advising IBM, Cisco, Agilent/HP, J&J, and Abbott for the firm of Kim Clark (former dean of Harvard Business School) alongside Clayton Christensen and other thought leaders. Harvard MBA.

Marc Penzel

Stephan Kuester
Stephan works with clients in government and private industry consortia all around the world, advising on the creation and the acceleration of tech and innovation clusters. Prior to his role at Startup Genome, Stephan headed up the International Consulting practice at UK ecosystem agency Tech Nation (fka Tech City UK) in London and served as Managing Director of digitalswitzerland.
Previous to his work in the digital ecosystems space, Stephan worked as an executive director for professional services firms Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young. Stephan holds an MSc in Economics and studied at the University of Bonn, Germany and the London School of Economics (LSE).

Tricia (Whitlock) Naik
Tricia runs operations and content at Startup Genome. Most recently she led communications and marketing at the BridgeCommunity corporate commercialization accelerator and helped Georgia State University expand their entrepreneurial efforts through opening an incubator and building a resource directory.
Tricia previously served as the Director of Marketing at TechSquare Labs incubator and seed fund and kickstarted Hypepotamus as a publication — the largest tech blog in the Southeast U.S.

Dr. Christopher Haley
Chris is Head of Research at Startup Genome. He was formerly head of new technology and startup research at Nesta, the Innovation foundation, and, prior to that, worked for several years in university technology transfer and enterprise strategy.
Chris has advisory roles with the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship, the UK Intellectual Property Office and the ScaleUp Institute. He is a 'Startup Europe' Ambassador, a Policy Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Entrepreneurship Network. He also consults as a Senior Entrepreneurship Strategy Specialist at The World Bank. Chris previously helped run the Startup Europe Partnership - a pan-European programme dedicated to promoting corporate-startup collaboration - and was part of the secretariat of the European Digital Forum, dedicated to helping digital startups scale across Europe.

Adam Bregu
Adam is focused on the growth and impact of Startup Genome’s acceleration and development globally. Previously, he worked in both the public and private sector across Australia and Europe, including Milan Government, European startup ecosystem projects, tech startups, as well as consulting.
A strong education and research background from The University of Melbourne and Double Masters from Bocconi University lead to his passionate research on the analysis, mapping, and development of startup ecosystems.

Hazel Boydell
Hazel leads the content team to create our Global Startup Ecosystem Report and other publications.
An experienced editor, she studied journalism and English before completing Columbia University's publishing course. After working in independent trade book publishing for many years, she moved into the world of entrepreneurship as Startup Guide's Editor-in-Chief before joining Startup Genome.

Rahul Chatterjee
Rahul's primary focus is to ensure operational efficiency at Startup Genome, and he is also tasked with building and managing a knowledge hub in India. In a career spanning 18 years, Rahul has had varied experience spanning policy research, strategy consulting, business development, sales operations, and team building.
His wealth of experience is drawn from companies ranging from the global Fortune 500 to national chambers of commerce to tech startups.

Pranav Arya
Pranav supports assessment and strategy formulation for ecosystems across the world. He works extensively with Startup Genome’s members and partners to drive the largest data collection project on startup ecosystems globally. Previously, Pranav was a Research Analyst at A.T. Kearney and supported the firm’s Private Equity and M&A practice.
He has worked on projects spanning investment strategy development, due diligence, target screening, and synergy optimization.

Parshant Sharma
Parshant has been in data analysis for the past 10 years, 6 of which have been in Startup Genome’s Data Science team. He leads the team responsible for the quantitative data infrastructure and analysis. This includes data on over 3 million companies, 280+ ecosystems, and survey data from more than 100,000 startup executives across the globe.
He brings a wealth of experience in working on GSER rankings and Ecosystem Assessments to the role. Prior to Startup Genome, Parshant had a Data Analytics role in a California based SaaS company.

Sama Siddiqui
Sama is the primary liaison between Startup Genome and the Members, and works closely with the implementation teams to ensure all deliverables are on track. She is the point person managing queries and connecting Members to one another to build a strong, integrated network of ecosystem developers.
Previously, as part of the Research team she provided research, analytical, and communication support across multiple projects including the production and launch of the annual Global Startup Ecosystem Reports.

Forrest Wright
Prior to joining Startup Genome, Forrest worked as the Data Manager at the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), where he was responsible for data analysis, survey development, and content generation.
Forrest holds a MS degree in Information Science from Drexel University.

Ethan Webster
Ethan specializes in offering key insights and recommendations for governments and ecosystems globally. He closely engages with our clients to produce relevant and actionable policy roadmaps.
Prior to joining Startup Genome, Ethan worked with the ESCP Business School studying startup ecosystem creation and success factors and holds a MA from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He has also worked with Scottish Parliament, US Congress and the Texas House of Representatives specializing in multilevel governance and international trade and finance.

Lucia Stefanuto
Lucia started her career studying Business, Marketing, and Neuroscience. She has always wanted to discover the “why” and found a way through analyzing data (facts and quantitative investigation) plus understanding how the mind works (behavior and qualitative research). She has more than fifteen years of experience in data analysis and visualization.
Prior to joining Startup genome, Lucia worked in BI & Market Research at an Argentinian university, and afterward, she was a data visualization consultant for Perficient.

Utkarsh Jain
Utkarsh leads Startup Genome's Consulting Team in India. He has worked with public & private innovation agencies from 30+ countries to generate data-driven insights and conduct in-depth analyses. He also leads the data collection process for the Global Founder Survey and helps with assessment and strategy projects.
In the past, he was a part of Startup Genome's Research and Content team and provided research and analytical support for various projects including the Global Startup Ecosystem Report.

Anna Brashear
Anna leads the growth marketing strategy at Startup Genome in order to bring our research insights to an ever-growing global audience of entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors, journalists, and other innovation enthusiasts. Prior to joining Startup Genome, she held various marketing roles in both startup and scaleup environments, helping German Edtech products to successfully break into the U.S. market.
Additionally, she has managed innovation programs in both Berlin & Munich – from the City of Berlin’s urban tech accelerator for early-stage entrepreneurs, to startup-inspired innovation training programs for corporates, and helping to launch Munich Innovation Ecosystem’s first tech sector conference, the Munich Summit.