- Alpha
- About Us
About Alpha
Founded in 2005, Alpha is an invite-only networking community for founders, CEOs, and leading technology influencers. The idea is simple: to create an environment where leaders in tech can connect and collaborate with their peers in a private setting where they can speak candidly. Alpha curates events that foster strong professional and personal relationships. We bring together the brightest people on a subject, theme or technology trend and let them decide where to take the conversation. Alpha hosts 60 events per year across 7 cities (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Boston and Chicago).
Established in 2005
2000 members across 7 cities
60 events per year covering a broad range of topics
7 advisory boards
Events with a Purpose
Alpha focuses on events that will give something back to the tech founders, CEOs and executives: a new board member, mentor, investor or partnership.
More About Events
Alpha is Unique
Alpha is different because our network is elite. Our founders, CEOs and executives join together to create a powerful network that is one of their biggest resources. Our advisory boards continue to help the Alpha team cultivate the community, ensuring quality of the membership remains top notch. Alpha is where founders and CEOs connect, create and learn from one another.
More About UsTeam
Eric Chin
Co-Founder
Eric is a MGP at Crosslink Capital and co-founder of Alpha —the entrepreneurial networking club for more than 1,500 Founders and CEOs. Prior to Crosslink, Eric was a partner at Bay Partners. His startup experience includes co-founding WebSpective (INKT) and TelASIC Communications (MTI). Eric holds a BA from Dartmouth and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mike Jung
Co-Founder
Mike is a co-founder of Alpha and founder and Managing Director of Founders Circle Capital, a growth stage technology investor that provides secondary liquidity for founders, early employees and investors. Mike has been a venture investor for over 10 years at Panorama Capital and JPMorgan Partners. Mike holds a BA from Berkeley and a JD and MBA from University of Michigan.
Emily Gonsenheim
Director of Alpha
Emily joined Alpha in 2012 and focuses on sponsor relations, curating membership and coordinating 60+ events per year for the Alpha Network. Emily was previously a preschool teacher in New York City. When not working, you can find her spending time with her family, running, practicing yoga, and enjoying the outdoors.
Allie Kerr
Head of Community
Allie joined Alpha in 2017 and focuses on marketing, community relations and coordinating 60+ events per year for the Alpha network. Allie was previously a Marketing, and Operations Associate at Wind Point Partners, a private equity investment firm in Chicago. Outside of work, you can probably find her hiking in Marin County or enjoying the sunshine in wine country.
McLain Southworth
Head of Strategic Relationships
McLain joined Crosslink in 2017 and focuses on Financial Technology, Digital Health, and Frontier Technology. At Alpha, McLain serves as the Head of Strategic Relationships.
McLain has 12 years of experience working with early stage technology companies as an entrepreneur, leader and investor. Prior to Crosslink, McLain was an early employee at Currenex which was acquired by State Street Bank (STT) in 2007. After the acquisition, McLain worked in State Street’s e-Exchange group, which oversaw all financial technology-related innovations and initiatives within the bank.
While at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, McLain worked as a Summer Associate for SV Angel. McLain went on to run business development for Apparent, which developed innovative networking and control technologies photovoltaic systems. McLain was also at CircleUp where he worked in their fund strategy group—an internal growth equity fund that invested in early stage consumer and retail companies.
Outside of work, McLain co-founded and serves on the board of directors of MAC USA, the 501(c)3 arm of a family organization that helps children and adults with disabilities in developing countries.
Our Sponsors
For more than 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. Learn more at svb.com.
Fenwick provides comprehensive legal services to leading technology and life sciences companies — at every stage of their lifecycle — and the investors that partner with them. For more than four decades, Fenwick has helped some of the world's most recognized companies become and remain market leaders. For more information, please visit fenwick.com/.
For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit https://aws.amazon.com.
Position2 is an innovative digital marketing agency that accelerates demand through integrated content marketing, paid acquisition and marketing technology solutions. We serve clients ranging from VC funded startups to Fortune 500 firms. Our team consists of marketing gurus, engineers, data scientists, writers and designers. Visit: www.position2.com
Crosslink Capital is a leading early-stage investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area investing in emerging growth companies since 1989. They are a proven team of early stage business builders investing out of their eighth fund ($275M). Crosslink partners with ambitious entrepreneurs who are reshaping massive markets with disruptive technology.