Meet The Team
Michael E. McGuire, Jr.
Founder & Key Instructor
Michael is a lifelong entrepreneur, leader and educator with multiple venture starts over a distinguished career.
Since 2018, Michael has taught Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. He began teaching international business and entrepreneurship at Oxbridge Academic Programs in 2015. He is an Advisor for the Dean’s Challenge Grant, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia, a Judge for Columbia Venture Competition and a Mentor for the Lab to Market Accelerator Network Columbia Tech Ventures. He is a coach for Babson’s Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program and has served as a mentor for Goldman Sachs “10KSB” program and a tutor at Columbia’s Community Impact. He has an MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, a BA from Columbia University, and a BS in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College.
After starting his career at Manufacturers Hanover Trust (now JPMorgan Chase), Michael followed his passion for start-ups and founded ARIA Worldwide, Inc., a global commodity trade and structured finance company. His second startup was ARIASYS Inc., an offshore software development company, with teams in the US and Europe that focused on building high availability, scalable trading systems. From there he leveraged his team to launch ARIA TV, a streaming media platform, which provided European television and cycling content to global viewers in a pre-YouTube world. His non-profit startup, the ITP Foundation, raised over $500k and funded research on ITP, a rare bleeding disorder. Michael has been on the board of Stillwater Mining (NYSE) and Plug Power (NASDAQ). He formely managed a venture fund, Twelve22 Capital Management LLC. Until November 2022, he was the GP of a partnership that was the majority investor in Symbridge, a digital asset exchange and broker dealer, where Michael was the Co-Founder and CEO from 2019-2021 and Chairman from 2021-2022. He built Symbridge from an idea to a 45-person high growth fintech startup. Michael has raised over $50 million in financing for his startups. He has been the Founder/CEO and builder of high performing international teams for 25+ years. Michael currently focuses on fintech, Web3, tokenization and education opportunities.He is on the Board of Advisors for the Codos Foundation. He is a dual citizen of the USA and Switzerland. He was a Finalist for Ernst & Young - Entrepreneur of the Year and is a 5-time Ironman Finisher.
Chloe Park
Digital Strategy Director & Regional Ambassador
(Singapore & South East Asia)
Chloe began her career as an assistant fashion designer at a womenswear company based in NYC, after receiving her BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Whilst working, she found her passion in digital marketing and startup businesses, and decided to attend a graduate business program at Columbia University where she met Michael in his entrepreneurship class!
Since graduation, she works at Accenture Song in Singapore as digital business and integration analyst, exploring the intersection between business & technology. Chloe is also a Davis UWC Scholar having completed her pre-tertiary education at the United World College of South East Asia.
As a founding team member Chloe helped define the Customer Value Proposition for Ivy Entrepreneurs and translated it into a succinct digital message. Chloe is based in Singapore.
Isabella Hopf
Program Strategy Director & Regional Ambassador
(Italy, DACH – Germany, Austria Switzerland)
Isabella is a German/Italian, born in Spain. She began her Economics studies at Cattolica in Milan before moving to the US to continue her studies at The Wharton School and Columbia University.
Her professional experiences include an internship at Accenture in Munich. Passionate about social impact, Isabella founded Cuora Consulting Cattolica, a pro bono consulting startup advising global NGOs and NPOs including the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Isabella is also a competitive volleyball player and won the U18s British National Beach Volleyball Championships in 2016.
As a founding team member her role at Ivy Entrepreneurs focuses heavily on program creation, strategy and structure and leverages her past entrepreneurship courses at Wharton and Columbia and fintech startup experience to understand the challenges new founders encounter. She is based in Milan.
Vera Linn Ekbom
Content Strategist & Regional Ambassador
(France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway)
Vera Linn is a designer, content strategist and creative maker who gravitates towards highly collaborative projects that allow for conceptual and critical thinking, in order to create with empathy.
With a background in both music and tech, Vera Linn began her career in Stockholm working with the Brilliant Minds Foundation and continued as a Creative Manager at Sony Music, before moving to Tokyo to work as a Video Producer.
Understanding the importance of design strategy and compelling storytelling, Vera Linn pivoted towards social and content strategy, consulting for brands and tech startups. As a creative, and founding team member at Ivy Entrepreneurs, she is most proud when able to implement ideas, motivate and inspire others, put the human experience at the center of a project or product, and see it to fruition. She is based in Stockholm and Paris.
Cindy Zhang
Lead Data & Market Analyst
Cindy is one of the key pioneers of all things data related and market driven at Ivy Entrepreneurs. As the lead data analyst, she is responsible for the market mapping and landscape analysis, customer data manipulation, as well as for the coordination of project development and budget management for Ivy Entrepreneurs.
Prior to entering the MA program at New York University, she obtained a BS degree in Economics at Capital University of Economics and Business (CUEB) in China and had two economic publications. Cindy's professional experience includes management consulting and quantitative analysis.
Previously, she spent a year working with Mercer and Roland Berger as a consulting intern. As a founding team member and in addition to her core roles she has enthusiastically helped with all aspects of the Ivy Entrepreneurs launch. Cindy is based in NYC.
Julieanne McKee
Social Media & Community Coordinator
Julieanne is a senior at Manhattan College where she plays Division 1 volleyball and studies marketing and business. She will be completing a fifth year to earn a Master’s degree.
Her professional experiences include working in recruitment and leadership development for the platform RippleMatch.
Julieanne’s prior experiences also include roles focused on marketing, advertising and social media. She enjoys content creation and as a founding team member will manage and engage with the Ivy Entrepreneur social media community. Julieanne is based in NYC.
Peter Hartwieg
IT, Security & Partnerships
Peter is currently based in Munich, Germany where he recently graduated from University of Europe for Applied Sciences, where he studied Digital Business and Data Science. During his gap semester at Columbia University, he met Michael and others on Ivy Entrepreneurs founding team.
Professionally, Peter gained experience first at corporate firms such as Airbus and Kühne + Nagel, before turning more towards the startup ecosystem in Germany, working as front-end developer for Mansio in Aachen.
Afterwards, Peter moved to Munich to become Head of IT at STM-Cars, a Tesla rental startup. During this time he also completed his bachlor thesis about tokenization of physical assets for startups like STM-Cars.
Outside his professional career, Peter also worked as a ski instructor and chef before, which describes his explorative nature.
At Ivy Entrepreneurs, Peter is focused on the technical development of Ivy Entrepreneurs, startup partnerships and all things related to IT and security.