Growth Capital in the Rockies (GCIR) 2026 Conference | Denver, Colorado

Hayfa has spent the past 15 years building and scaling programs, people, and teams across the public and private sector. Her extensive experience as an operator spans across startups at various stages ranging from Pre-Seed to Series E – building and scaling high performing teams at companies including Gusto, Opendoor, Rupa Health, CampusLogic, etc. She most recently spent the past year advising many growth stages companies on go-to-market strategy and operations. 

Prior to venturing into startups, Hayfa was a Teach for America Corps member and a Fulbright Scholar. She graduated with a degree in Business Management from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and completed her Masters of Education from Arizona State University while serving in the TFA corps. Hayfa has a deep passion for transforming lives through technology and building a world class tech community in Colorado. 

Alison most recently held the role of Chief Financial Officer of CrossFit for nearly three years, and she also served as interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing Officer during her tenure.

Throughout her career, Alison has held operational and investment roles at high-growth companies in the technology and consumer sectors. She has been a growth and venture capital investor for more than 15 years, previously working as managing director of Mercato Partners, and she currently serves as a venture partner with Signal Peak Ventures.

Carine is a four-time president and CEO of high-growth tech companies, specializing in helping companies scale. Her reputation as a data-driven marketing executive at Novell, Altiris and Symantec opened doors to lead Allegiance, MartizCX and Banyan as president and CEO. She recently accepted the CEO position at First Colony Mortgage, a fast growing financial services company headquartered in Utah. Previously, she was the chief innovation officer at Lumio HX.

She is an active angel and venture investor in software as a service (SaaS) software companies and supports entrepreneurs in the US, Latin America, Israel and Australia.

Carine serves as the chair of GOEO (the Utah governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity) and the executive board of Silicon Slopes, a nonprofit helping Utah’s tech community thrive. Currently, she’s the executive chairman for Domo and serves as an independent board director for Nelnet Bank. She also serves on the Salt Lake City Olympic Bid committee and works with every major university in Utah to help students be more prepared for tech jobs.

Carine has received numerous awards, including the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Utah region and Utah Business Magazine’s CEO of the Year. In 2021, she was named Outstanding Director for a Public Company by the National Association of Corporate Directors Utah. Most recently, she was recognized for technology leadership at the Sundance Film Festival’s Women’s Leadership Celebration. Carine earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational communications and an MBA from Brigham Young University.

AJ is a results-driven operator and growth investor with 20+ years of global experience across a wide range of technology and tech-enabled services sectors and throughout the capital structure. Over the course of his career, AJ has led more than $50 million in equity and debt investments, supported in excess of $250 million of aggregate revenue growth as a board member/observer, and advised on M&A transactions and capital raises totaling more than $1 billion. As COO at Vertex, AJ oversees growth and operational excellence, including leadership of Vertex’s construction management agency and MSP services divisions.

AJ also is a venture partner with Unifi Ventures – where he serves on the boards of SHARE Mobility and KoreLock – and a chief experience officer with BRITE Energy Innovators. He previously was a partner with Iron Gate Capital, where he led multiple investments, including EGYM and Fetch Package. Prior to Iron Gate, AJ led the corporate venture capital and corporate development effort in North America for Delta Electronics and supported VC-backed entrepreneurs as a banker with Pacific Western Bank. He started his career in investment banking at Innovation Capital.

AJ is a passionate servant leader in the Rocky Mountain ecosystem and serves as co-chair of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association. He previously served on advisory boards with the Wells Fargo/NREL Innovation Incubator (IN²) and Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network. AJ holds a BS degree in business administration from the University of Colorado Boulder and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He lives in Denver with his wife and two daughters.

Josh is a senior industry principal at Workiva who helps lead its capital markets practice. Josh started his career with KPMG and served audit and advisory clients for nearly a decade, followed by a number of industry accounting and finance roles, such as controllerships and corporate development. 

Josh has experience with multiple initial and secondary offerings, business combinations and mergers, financial statement audits, Sarbanes-Oxley Act audits and implementation, and systems integrations.

Ben serves as an independent trustee for the Cashmere Fund (CSHMX), an Investment Company Act of 1940 fund launched in Colorado in 2022.

His prior experience includes a product partnerships role for Shopify, a blend of business development, corporate development and general management functions for Auctane (formerly Stamps.com), and 24 years of deals and team leadership dating back to GoTo.com/Overture and the birth of search marketing. Ben has led and negotiated with teams in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Australia, closing more than $6 billion worth of transactions for shareholders. Africa is next.

While working for Cooley from 2014 to 2020, Ben collaborated in support of GCIR as part of the host/sponsor committee and considers GCIR Advisory Board service an honor.

Ben Lopez is a Senior Associate at Mercato Partners, where he focuses on growth-stage investments across sectors including technology and infrastructure. Before joining Mercato, Ben worked as a Senior Investment Analyst at Utah Retirement Systems and served as Chair of the Lassonde New Venture Development Program. Earlier in his career, he applied his scientific background at Allergan Pharmaceuticals, where he reverse-engineered branded products for generic development, and later founded two startups, Neighbor Boys and Outbdcars. At Mercato, Ben combines analytical rigor with entrepreneurial insight to help visionary founders scale enduring companies.

Matt has been a general partner at Pelion Venture Partners since 2021, after two years as an operating partner with the firm. Prior to joining Pelion, Matt was the founder of College Heights Partners, an M&A consulting firm focused on helping software companies maximize their exit opportunities. College Heights was the advisor for several Pelion exits, including SOASTA’s sale to Akamai Technologies and DataScience.com’s sale to Oracle.

Matt served for several years as senior vice president of corporate development at Oracle Corporation, where he was responsible for all of the company’s mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, spinoffs, and technology licensing, as well as the $500 million Oracle Venture Fund.

Matt has been CEO for five venture-backed startups, including Pelion portfolio company Unifi Software (which later was sold to Dell). He is a frequent lecturer on topics relating to corporate strategy at colleges and universities, and he served on the board of a research laboratory at Cambridge University in the UK. Matt has been featured on CNN, Bloomberg TV and CNBC, as well as in The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek, on topics related to M&A and corporate strategy.

Erika is a Next Frontier Capital partner with experience investing across the life cycle of entrepreneurial companies. With roots in the Mountain West, Erika loves working with founders in the region she calls home.

Erika started her career on Sorenson Capital’s growth-stage team, supporting notable investments in Harness and Socure, as well as Amplitude’s initial public offering. Erika later spent time with Pelion and OpenView Partners investing in early-stage enterprise and vertical software as a service companies. Prior to her investment work, Erika managed a $300 million portfolio as a product manager and advised Fortune 500 software companies as a management consultant. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business management and a JD/MBA from Brigham Young University.

Erika is an outdoors enthusiast and often can be found hiking, mountain biking, or skiing in the backcountry. She is also an avid supporter of the performing arts and the biggest fan of her 11 nieces and nephews.

Ryan is the managing partner at Unifi Ventures, an investment firm that specializes in forming special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to facilitate investment by family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals and accredited investors in category-leading technology companies at the growth stage. He currently serves on the boards of Respondology, HZO, Liqid and RemoteLock.

Ryan is a prior chair of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association and served on its board for a decade. He also is the founder of the Starfish Greathearts Foundation, which support thousands of orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. Earlier in his career, Ryan held several operating roles at Investec Asset Management (now called Ninety One) in South Africa and England. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, a graduate degree from Oxford University in the UK, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Boulder with his wife, Lauren, and their two children, Jace and Madelyn.

For the past 40 years, Ed has been an active technology entrepreneur and investor. He is also a limited partner in venture capital and private equity funds. His investment activity is primarily focused on seed and early-stage technology startups. He mentors founders and executive teams, focusing on realistic operating plans, credible business models, and compelling investment presentations.

Venture capital and private equity firms have engaged Ed to assist their portfolio companies, and his experience and effectiveness span early-stage (revenues up to $50 million) to mid-sized ($50 million to $300 million) companies. His work has encompassed turnarounds and streamlining operations, M&A, intellectual property sales, upgrading management teams, securing equity financing, and preparing companies for initial public offerings.

Ed also leverages his expertise as an active board member, permanent executive officer or strategic advisor. In 2007 and 2008, he provided on-site business mentoring to nuclear, biological, chemical and delivery scientists from the Iraqi regime to develop feasible business models to aid in the post-war reconstruction of the country.

Ed holds an MBA from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, and he studied electrical and mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado.

Since 1992, Brian has worked extensively with early-stage tech companies and in venture capital finance as an attorney, investor and venture capitalist. Brian previously was a partner and chair of the corporate and securities group with Fairfield and Woods in Denver. He also worked on the patent, copyright and trademark subcommittee of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, and in corporate finance and accounting with Electronic Data Systems in the US and Europe. 

Brian received his law degree, magna cum laude, in 1992 from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, and a BS degree in business finance, magna cum laude, in 1988 from the University of Arizona.