Litquidity 30 Under 30: The 2020 Cohort

Current: Associate, Private Equity @ Apollo Global Management

Alma Mater: NYU 

Amanda is currently an associate at Apollo's $77 billion private equity group, investing globally across opportunistic leveraged buyouts, corporate carve-outs, and distressed debt and serving as a board observer at Coinstar. Prior to Apollo, she was an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs in the TMT group where she worked on the 21st Century Fox spin-off and sale to Disney. 

Amanda was a competitive figure skater for thirteen years growing up and has become an avid snowboarder in recent years.

Current: Senior Associate @ Moelis and International DJ @ Old City

Alma Mater: Ivey Business School - Western University

Instagram: @oldcity_official

Amer is currently a senior investment banking associate at Moelis in New York, focused on the Consumer & Retail industry. He was previously an analyst in their Dubai office. Notable transaction experience includes Drunk Elephant's sale to Shiseido and the IPO of Saudi Aramco.

Amer doubles as an international DJ under the duo Old City, with residency event nights at Gospel and Amaya in New York. They performed at Burning Man in 2018 and 2019 and toured across North America and Europe, performing in Tulum, Mexico City, Ibiza, Pantelleria, Sicily, and Lisbon in 2020. 

Amer is a Palestinian-American who primarily grew up in Saudi Arabia. After moving to New York in 2017, he splits his time managing both careers delicately, with international performance travel having been made possible due to the flexibility of the WFH environment.

Current: Quarterback @ Los Angeles Rams

Alma Mater: Wake Forest University

Instagram: @johnwolford10

John is currently a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams. John's NFL debut was against the Arizona Cardinals (led by Kyler Murray) with a spot in the playoffs on the line. You can get the play-by-play on ESPN but the bottom line is they won. 

In his senior year at Wake Forest, John had accepted a job offer at a bulge bracket bank but was able to defer it after a great final season. Following his senior year, John signed with the Jets as an undrafted free agent. He was subsequently cut during training camp (smdh Jets) and was able to land a role as a private equity analyst at NC-based Teall Capital. At Teall, John was able to manage work and train during his down time. He was slated to enter investment banking the following year before getting picked up by the Arizona Hotshots in the AAF. His 2019 season performance garnered the attention of the LA Rams and was eventually brought on board. 

As a finance major at Wake Forest with experience interning at the university endowment his junior year + experience at Teall Capital, John is a true gentleman who appreciates the finance meme game.

Current: Principal @ Costanoa Ventures

Alma Mater: Connecticut College

Twitter: @amyecheetham

Amy is currently a Principal at Costanoa Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto. Prior to Costanoa, Amy was Chief of Staff at Zuora (NYSE: ZUO), an enterprise software company that creates and provides software for businesses to launch and manage their subscription-based services. Prior to Zuora, she was an Associate at Summit Partners, a global growth equity firm with $20B+ AUM. Prior to Summit, she was an analyst at JP Morgan where she spent time in sales & trading and TMT investment banking coverage. 

Amy hails from Maine and both her parents are scientists with PhDs. She had never heard of EBITDA or Investment Banking until sophomore year in college. In fact, her college career counselor told her she "didn't have the personality to work in finance". Amy spent the next year cold emailing anyone and everyone (~150 people) until eventually landing an internship at JP Morgan. Her determination to prove someone wrong was pretty good motivation to break into finance.

Current: Co-Founder @ Two Robbers Hard Seltzer

Alma Mater: NYU

Vikram started Two Robbers Hard Seltzer in 2017 with his twin brother and officially launched it in March 2019 in Philadelphia. Today, they're the largest independent hard seltzer brand in the Northeast, one of the fastest growing (650%+ YoY), and distributed across 2,500 retailers in PA, NYC, CT, NJ, DE, and TX. They named the brand "Two Robbers" after the apartment they started the company in was broken into twice in a matter of weeks.

Prior to starting Two Robbers, Vikram spent four years on the investment team at Trian Partners, the multi-billion dollar hedge fund run by Nelson Peltz. Prior to Trian, Vikram was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.

Vikram is a finmeme connoisseur, having followed Litquidity and the other pages dating back to 2017. 

*** was 29 when nominated for the list

Current: Head of Zero-Based Budgeting @ Restaurant Brands International (NYSE: QSR)

Alma Mater: Cornell University

Andres currently heads the Zero-Based Budgeting function at RBI (parent company of Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeye's Louisiana Chicken) focusing on sustainable long-term solutions to optimize costs and capital allocation across the organization. Previously, he was the Business Development & Relationship Lead for Burger King franchisees in the southern states of Mexico (where he discovered his passion for tequila). 

Prior to joining RBI, Andres was an investment banker at Credit Suisse in New York, where he covered financial institutions across Latin America. Andres' first role out of college was in the financial technology space at IBM. 

Growing up in Miami, he discovered his passion for finance while working after school for a mortgage broker in 2008, where he helped facilitate ~$20M in home refinancing deals of varying loan structures. Although not directly featured, his participation was implied in The Big Short.

After optimizing budgets for RBI, he can be found catching W's on Call of Duty: War Zone under gamertag JunkBond122 or indulging in Maestro Dobel Tequila at the VIP section of La Victoria in Miami.

Current: Vice President @ Goldman Sachs

Alma Mater: University of Texas at San Antonio (Undergrad + MS, Finance)

Diana is currently a VP in the Fixed Income group at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where she focuses on securitized products such as CLOs and ABS. She has been with GS since 2014 working in the GSAM Fixed Income group and previously in the Credit Research group out in Salt Lake City covering TMT, CRH, and Industrials (where she would regularly ski after work and load up on $5 drinks at après). 

Diana moved to the US from Colombia as a teenager knowing zero English and nothing about the US college system or financial industry. She worked three jobs to fund her eating/partying/traveling habits in undergrad and grad school that her scholarships did not cover (nor did she want her parents to pay for it): 1. bellydancing / cycling instructor, 2. video production assistant, and 3. personal trainer at the gym. She did her masters in finance to make sure there were no visa lottery issues and also came across her first GS credit analyst through one of her professors. 

She has mastered the art of "work life balance" by embracing being a full blown bond nerd while also being immune to hangovers. She will down oat milk lattes while laser focused on her BBG screens and seamlessly transition to downing beers and having a good time on a regular basis. In her free time, she volunteers to mentor families suffering from childhood cancer (pre COVID) and Zoom-tutoring children of essential workers (post COVID) – they are her closest friends in this COVID environment now. 

Diana fully embodies the Litquidity spirit and is simply built different.

Current: Partner and Head of Research @ G Squared

Alma Mater: University of California, Berkeley

Spencer joined G Squared in early 2014 and was elevated to his current role as a Partner and Head of Research in late 2015. He is a member of both the Executive Team and the firm's Investment Committee. During his involvement with G Squared, Spencer has led or co-led several of the firm's major investments, including Asana, Brex, Coursera, Fast AF, Flexport, Impossible Foods, Instacart, Lyft, Pinterest, Postmates, Snap, Spotify, and Toast (among others).

Prior to G Squared, Spencer was an Associate at SuRo Capital (Nasdaq: SSSS), the world's first publicly traded VC fund, and an Analyst at GSV Ventures. Prior to GSV, Spencer spent time in the early part of his career at Merrill Lynch.

Fun fact: Spencer sat in the lobby of a prominent Scandinavian unicorn for three days until management would grant him a meeting. As a result, Spencer's firm ended up as one of the 10 largest shareholders in the company at the time of IPO.

Spencer owns 7 VC-branded Patagonias and is being actively courted by the Mayor of Miami to make the move from San Francisco (shoutout Mayor Suarez). 

***29 at time of nomination

Current: Managing Director @ Sinarmas Group and Managing Director / Founding Partner @ SEA Investment Capital

Alma Mater: President University (Indonesia)

William is currently a managing director and executive member for Indonesian billionaire Fuganto Widjaja's family office, where he has acquired public and private equity assets in Southeast Asia, Australia, and Japan. He also formed a personal fund (SEA Investment Capital), managing an 8-figure USD portfolio comprised of both public and private equity investment in Southeast Asia. 

Prior to Sinarmas, he was head of the investment team at Inspire Ventures, a $25M USD VC fund, splitting time between Hong Kong and Thailand. Prior to Inspire, William was an investment banking associate director at Panasean Group and an associate consultant at BCG. 

William grew up in a "lower middle class" family in Indonesia after policy changes and monetary crises impacted his family. He worked his way into President University (a relatively new and non-target university in Indonesia) and took on several internships before landing at BCG full-time.

Current: Associate @ HarbourVest Partners

Alma Mater: Penn State University

Eric is currently an Associate at HarbourVest Partners focused on evaluating, structuring, and executing secondary PE opportunities, including traditional and complex GP-led transactions. Prior to HarbourVest, he was a top ranked analyst in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch M&A group. At BAML, he was involved in 5 closed M&A deals totaling ~$10B aggregate transaction value. 

Over the course of his finance career, he has made numerous appearances on Litquidity's IG stories, most recently a video of him doing bench chest flys using banker bags filled with water bottles as a home workout. 

In his spare time, Eric produces EDM tracks under the name "Korean Mafia" and is passionate about giving back to society by donating his side-income from DJing. He also enjoys attending raves and can be easily spotted in a mosh-pit. 

Although he was born in College Station, TX, Eric spent most of his childhood in South Korea until attending high school in PA where he played varsity football as a kicker. 

As a proud Penn State alumnus, he is committed to helping Penn State and Korean students break into Wall Street.

Current: Incoming Finance Manager @ pre-IPO SaaS company

Alma Mater: Boston College

Bobby has a wealth of experience in the finance industry including M&A, Debt and Equity transactions, buy side investing, and management and operating experience. He is set to join a Denver-based, pre-IPO SaaS company where he'll be responsible for building out the finance team and helping to identify / set strategic financial initiatives. Additionally, he runs a business advising startups and entrepreneurs on topics including business model alignment, strategy, and capital raising. 

Bobby was most recently Head of Finance / VP of Strategy for Voyant Photonics, a seed-stage LiDAR company. Prior to Voyant, he was an analyst at a NY-based hedge fund covering tech, media, and entertainment.

He first 'Popped the top off the Maybach' ™ at Jefferies as an analyst in the FIG group.

In his spare time, Bobby is an avid cyclist (he's Cat5 Bob from the @400WattsClub cycling meme page). He also serves as a career coach / industry specialist for SEO, a non-profit organization that helps students from diverse backgrounds secure internships and full-time roles in the industry. You can donate to SEO here.

Fun Fact: Bobby shorted the VIX on margin and is still living to tell the tale. He views the self-targeting and self-deprecating humor of FinMemes helps bring us back down to earth and keep us grounded. 

Current: Managing Partner @ Hartmann Capital

Alma Mater: Florida Atlantic University

Instagram: @felix_hartmann

Felix is currently the managing partner of Hartmann Capital, a multi-strategy crypto fund that he founded 3 years ago. Some of his strategies include long/short, volatility arb, event-driven, and quantitative plays. 

Felix is also on the board of Melon Protocol and Auctus Project, has consulted for Forbes & Manhattan, advised the British Consulate on Facebook's Libra, and has lectured at four accredited universities on Bitcoin and Blockchain.

Felix immigrated to the US from Germany in 2008 during the financial crisis. He began trading in 2012 and took a hiatus in 2016 to pursue a startup opportunity. When the startup started accepting bitcoin payments, Felix became enamored and went down the crypto rabbit hole. He ultimately decided to go all in on accumulating and trading cryptocurrencies.

Felix tends to work 16 hour days given the 24/7 nature of crypto markets. However, in his downtime he likes to train in martial arts with Bruce Lee's old training partner and write (he published a dystopian book called "Dark Age" which is available on Amazon). 

Current: Co-Founder @ Change

Alma Mater: Northwestern University

Amar is currently the co-founder of Change, a tech startup that is making software to streamline corporate giving and help companies easily engage with their customers. Prior to Change, he was an associate at Birchwood Healthcare Partners, a Chicago-based healthcare focused private equity firm. 

Once a month at his old PE shop, Amar would send around his favorite Litquidity memes (ayyy). Office favorites included "Fantasy Football Distribution Schedule" and "Weekend Sources & Uses". 

Amar takes pride in having former US President Barack Obama as a follower on twitter.

Current: Engineering Manager, R&D @ Riot Games

Alma Mater: California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo (BS, Computer Engineering, Minor, Applied Math and Behavioral Psych)

John is currently Engineering Manager, R&D at Riot Games, a video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer. Prior to Riot, he was an Engineering Manager at Tally, a fintech startup that raised a $50M Series C last year. Prior to Tally, he was the 8th engineer at Caffeine, a real-time broadcasting platform that raised a $146M Series C led by 21st Century Fox. Prior to Caffeine, he was a software engineer at Amazon Lab126.

Before his stints at various well-capitalized firms, John founded several companies, such as Sole Good (a product designed to improve running forms) and GameWYZ (a coaching service with pro/semi-pro video game players). 

John is a really active individual, having finished 4 Ironman Triathlons, 2 24Hr World's Toughest Mudders, and pursues ultra-marathons. He slams life like 0DTE SPY calls, pounds AMF cocktails like its Glacier Freeze Gatorade, and enjoys traveling the world / eating sushi with his girl. John just wants to see himself and his family prosper, while always paying it forward. 

Current: VC Correspondent @ Financial Times

Alma Mater: Rice University

Miles is currently a venture capital correspondent at the Financial Times and is the first ever reporter to hold that role at the FT. His biggest scoop this past year was breaking the news that Oracle was bidding to buy TikTok. He has also done well covering some of the biggest hitters in the Valley with some memorable quotes from characters like Chamath Palihapitiya and Bill Gurley. Dan Loeb (billionaire founder of Third Point) also recently tweeted out Miles' scoop on his new fund. 

Prior to the Financial Times, Miles was a senior writer at Absolute Return, where he covered hedge fund news. 

On the weekends, Miles can be found on the tennis court. He takes pride in saying he lived in Austin, TX before Elon Musk and all the VCs thought it was cool. 

Current: Founder @ Amberjack and Strategic Advisor @ Everglades Equity

Alma Mater: Cornell University

John is currently the founder of Amberjack, a footwear brand delivering a shoe that blends style and comfort ideal for the WFH environment. He raised capital from leading angel investors and VCs and built a team that includes the former CEO of Cole Haan, ex-head of design at Coach and Allen Edmonds, and Adidas' footwear technology lead. He built a 10K person waitlist prior to launch in November 2020. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Everglades Equity, a middle market PE fund started by former Blackstone and HIG investors. 

Prior to Amberjack, he was a consultant at McKinsey where he was one of the youngest and fastest promotes from Analyst directly to Engagement Manager. He temporarily left McKinsey for McDonalds to help launch their Uber Eats global partnership, where he reported directly to the Head of Global Strategy. 

Fun Fact: Believe it or not, he is Puerto Rican. 

Check out Amberjack.

Current: Private Equity Associate @ Wind Point Partners

Alma Mater: Northwestern University

Brandon is currently an associate at Wind Point Partners, a middle market private equity firm focused on growth capital investments and leveraged buyouts. Prior to Wind Point, Brandon was an investment banking analyst at William Blair in the Consumer & Retail group. At Northwestern, Brandon played on the varsity soccer team. 

He is also involved with the Urban Initiatives non-profit organization in Chicago, which empowers Chicago's youth to become agents of community change through academic success, healthy living, and leadership development.

Fun Fact: Brandon once played in a charity / exhibition match with Lionel Messi at 18 years old (Messi and Friends, Chicago 2013)

Brandon immigrated to the US from Mexico when he was 4 and worked his ass off to get to where he is. To sum up Brandon's journey, he likes to say "started from the border now we're here".

Current: Portfolio Manager @ Burford Capital

Alma Mater: Notre Dame

Nick is currently a portfolio manager for a $300M litigation finance fund at Burford Capital in Chicago. He was previously an associate at HIG Capital (Miami office) in Distressed. Prior to HIG Capital, Nick was an investment banking analyst at Credit Suisse in the industrials group.

Nick has a Soho House membership and will tell you he has it within 5 minutes of meeting.

Current: Equity Analyst & Portfolio Manager at Vestact Asset Management

Alma Mater: University of Cape Town

Bright is currently an equity analyst and portfolio manager at Vestact Asset Management, a boutique hedge fund in Johannesburg, South Africa with ~$450M AUM. Prior to his current role, he was a junior corporate costing controller at Nestle. 

Bright is also a TV show host (Velocity on Business Day TV), a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Fighter (aka choking people for pleasure), a Michael & Susan Dell Scholar, avid marathoner, and founder of the 10c challenge.

Bright is truly a "rags to riches" story from rural KwaZulu-Natal. He was born in the Drakensburg mountains and worked hard to get into the best and most prestigious college in Africa.

In true finmeme fashion, Bright placed a girthy bet on the Airbnb IPO and hopes to retire at a young age.

Current: Sr. Technical Business Development Manager @ Amazon

Alma Mater: Xbox Live

Twitter: @chhlss

Chelsea forewent college to play video games for a living, before the big esports boom. She was a gamer turned tournament director, managing some of the largest esports competitions around the world. 

Without a tech background or degree, she was able to utilize her unique and highly sought after experience in the esports industry to land a role at Amazon. Since joining in Q1 2018, she has worked her way into a senior tech role and now uses her vested RSU's and Big 5 salary to day-trade yolo options (+6788bps MoM), invest in SPACs (+4397bps MoM), and buy deep ITM LEAPS. 

Chelsea also uses her breadth of industry experience to derive real-world content for her passion project - creating memes to post on twitter.

Current: Founder & CEO @ Polymarket

Alma Mater: NYU (attended for a semester)

Instagram: @shaynecoplan

Twitter: @shayne_coplan

Shayne is the founder and CEO of Polymarket, the world's leading information markets platform where speculators bet on the most highly-debated topics (politics, COVID-19, the news, etc.) producing actionable, unbiased insights on the matters most important to society. The company is still in beta but has done around $60M of gross transaction volume in the past 2.5 months and counts Litquidity as an early active user.

Shayne most recently raised $4M in October 2020 from some of the biggest names in crypto and tech led by Polychain Capital and Naval Ravikant (co-founder of AngelList). Other investors include Balaji Srinivasan (former CTO of Coinbase and former general partner at a16z), Meltem Demirors (Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares), and others.

When asked to say something about himself, Shayne's response was "yolo". He is a firm believer that talk is cheap and this is why he created Polymarket. With Polymarket, he's making it so that anyone in the world can put their money where their mouth is.

Current: MBA Candidate @ Harvard Business School

Alma Mater: Harvard College

Frank is currently pursuing his MBA at HBS. He was most recently focused on healthcare investments as a private equity associate at TPG Capital. Prior to TPG, he was a private equity associate at Great Hill Partners. Prior to private equity, Frank was an M&A analyst at PJ Solomon and Gleacher & Co (iykyk). 

When he is not in the office justifying multiples with fully COVID-adjusted run-rate performance, Frank enjoys reminding people that New York City didn't "fall off", but rather they fell off.

Current: CFO @ Averraglow

Alma Mater: University of Florida

Charles is currently CFO of Averr Aglow, an Atlanta-based women's skincare line that primarily sells through ecommerce. Prior to Averr Aglow, Charles held various roles at Siemens (F50 FLDP, Performance Controller), corporate development / FP&A @ Tech Data, and was a financial analyst at Credito Real USA / AFS Acceptance.

In 2011, Charles was a homeless delivery driver struggling with substance abuse issues and turned it around. Sober since then, Charles put himself through college at the University of Florida, traveled extensively, enjoyed multiple entrepreneurial ventures, helped sell power plants, restructured businesses, acquired companies, and now serves as the CFO of a business catering to women's health. Despite all of these accomplishments, Charles' biggest accomplishment in life has been helping dozens of men recover from alcoholism and drug addiction.

Charles enjoys the Litquidity account because he sees it brings fun into finance. When he thinks of finance, he thinks freedom of creativity and unlimited possibilities, and the finance memes turn that up a notch. 

Current: Associate, FX S&T @ Jefferies

Alma Mater: Dartmouth College

Hayley is currently as associate in the FX sales/trading desk at Jefferies, where she has been since graduating from Dartmouth 3.5 years ago. At Jefferies, she is also co-head of "NextGen", a group focused on the advancement of analysts and associates. In 2019, she was named a "Culture Carrier" for the firm. In college, Hayley was the captain of the Dartmouth women's soccer team.

In her spare time, her passion is to help rescue animals. Hayley works closely with several animal shelters/rescues and saves dogs that are going to be euthanized. Her favorite rescue, Town and Country k9 resQ, was started by a female Jefferies MD that she worked with (prior to retirement last year).

Her colleagues with decades of experience on the street mention that she is one of the most upbeat corporate driven individuals they have encountered - someone who goes out of her way to make the workplace environment better. 

Current: Private Equity Associate @ a global asset manager

Alma Mater: University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

Atlanta is currently a private equity associate at a global alternative asset manager (compliance reasons) in their London office. Previously, Atlanta was an M&A investment banking analyst at Citi in the Frankfurt office. She also completed internships at Lazard and Jefferies in Zurich and Frankfurt, respectively. 

Atlanta enjoys hosting epic dinner parties, where she mentions she has ~20 years of experience. Additionally, she runs a book club on instagram (@atlanta_loves_books) where she has over 8,500 followers. 

Atlanta is a competitor and never gives up no matter how many #REF! errors come her way.

This section goes out to the individuals who did not receive compliance approval and had to respectfully decline participating in the list.

Among these individuals were  ivy league graduates who now work at the world's largest private equity firms and sizable hedge funds, who work hard & play harder, and are true FinMeme connoisseurs. Pour one out for them.

Maybe next year.