Max Machkasau

* Co-founder and lead of the Zurich chapter: bringing together the city's tech ecosystem every Saturday. * Founders Running Club is a global community and a curated network, where founders, investors, operators, and creators come together.

Launching new products, building partnerships and business development for the world's most helpful and delightful smart home platform. Owning full partnership lifecycle - from deal sourcing to deal structuring and negotiation to closing complex contracts with C-level, Product and Commercial teams. I also acted as a 20% role Product Manager for Google Smart Home.

Leading Assistant business development, strategy, product adoption and DAU growth through ecosystem building and partnerships with global top brands and scale developers in smart home and mobile across EMEA on the way to 1B+ users.

Founding partnerships and funding mentor (20% project) for Google for Startups Accelerator: Sustainable Development Goals, Google's global social impact initiative. Advising social impact startups from across EMEA, that leverage power of technology to tackle and fix big problems facing humanity.

Managed Partnerships across EMEA @ Google for Startups (rotation), helping entrepreneurs grow and scale their ventures that will change the world. Learn more at startup.google.com and campus.co. Led Powered by Launchpad accelerator regional partnerships. In my full time role as Startups Growth Lead in Baltic States with focus on mobile apps & games, I worked with brightest minds and most ambitious founders from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and with the team of Google experts and consultants helped founders and their teams build great products and scale their growth globally. Companies include Vinted (unicorn from LT), Nordcurrent (top gaming studio), Synctuition (meditation app) and multiple other fast mobile growing apps, gaming and fintech startups from Baltics.

Partnered with top regional app/gaming developers and helping them leverage Google product suite to drive mobile app user acquisition strategy and global growth. 20% project Startups & Google Launchpad Regional Lead and Mentor. Working with regional startup ecosystem, VC funds and accelerators to inspire aspiring entrepreneurs and help growth ventures scale.

Shaped and implemented the business development and partnerships strategy in Baltics and CIS emerging markets, drive growth on the global scale for key multi-industry partners in apps, gaming, fin-tech and e-commerce verticals. Led the team responsible for digital education and business consulting to executives of media/SEM agencies and entrepreneurs in order to foster the digital advertising ecosystem and enable local large businesses and SMBs to use the power of digital economy to connect with customers and reach broader markets. Established C-level relationships and worked closely with local partners to drive innovation, digital transformation and economic growth in the region. 20% project: driving local Google Launchpad initiatives with regional startup community & accelerators

Lead the cross-functional team, which built a scale-up within Google and launched Google & YouTube operations in the new markets of CIS region, developed go-to-market strategy and drove key partnerships, supported launches of multiple new products (e.g. localized YouTube advertising solutions and partnership program for local creators and Google Translate).

Supporting SpaceX's mission to revolutionize space access and expand our horizons, fueling the future of space exploration and innovation – driving humanity's next giant leap into the cosmos.

Startup Wise Guys is Europe's most experienced B2B startup accelerator: accelerated and invested in more than 100 startups since 2012, raised more than 16.4 million euros in funding. Invested in great founders / companies such as: Bolt, Ziticity, Katana and multiple fintech, B2B, Saas startups via accelerator and as a limited partner with Wise Guys Ventures Fund.

Kiva is one of the world's most impactful organizations and the largest online microfinance platform, crowdfunding $200M/ year in loans and catalytic capital to financially underserved borrowers in over 80 countries around the world. +Responsible for portfolio of 25+ partners across 15+ countries and drove business development across the vast region, generating 20M+ loan volume annually and impacting 5K+ entrepreneurs. +Built the investment pipeline, lead the due diligence of new partnerships, formulated growth and impact strategy in the region. Managed proposal, negotiation, contract, on-boarding and training processes for approved partners and ensured operational models to successfully scale, develop new innovative products and raise capital on the Kiva platform. + Led and managed and a team of 20+ outstanding high-performing Kiva Fellows (e.g. consultants, pre-MBA students) across multiple counties, challenging social and professional environments. + Supported strategic cross-functional org-wide projects and worked closely with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders, such as Kiva HQ teams in SF, including Investments, Product, Engineering, Legal, and field partner organizations across many countries. Provided field context and field partners' perspective to help Kiva develop better technology and tools for partners and create highly catalytic and innovative loan products across the regional and global portfolios. + Expanded the portfolio to 10 new countries, grew portfolio 5X in terms of partners/10X in volume and co-developed brand new products for startup and green/solar funding.

+ Joined the small team in an acceleration and growth stage, worked across multiple areas of operations to build the operations and portfolio teams and processes to allow for rapid scaling of platform operations into new markets with new products. + First employee to scale Kiva portfolio operations to Europe and Central Asia

+ As an Associate and then a Senior Associate in KPMG's Transaction Services practice in Silicon Valley, Max consulted and provided merger and acquisition financial due diligence assistance to world's top Tech players: financial (e.g. private equity) and strategic buyers (Fortune 500 companies),including cross-border deals. Clients consulted include: Adobe, Intel, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Cisco, and technology-focused private equity firms, such as Accel-KKR, Francisco Partners and others. Industry focus included software/SaaS, Internet, semiconductors, networking equipment, hardware and electronics, and consumer markets. + Managed internal resources and client budgets. Performed strategic planning and execution of client projects + Recruited, supervised, trained, and mentored interns and associates. + Licensed CPA (California) and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

+Provided merger and acquisition management consulting and restructuring services to Fortune 500 companies and private equity clients. +Responsible for financial and operational due diligence analysis on a variety of buy-side and sell-side transactions across the software, Internet, semiconductors, and solar energy sectors. +Fastest promotion to Senior Associate in just 1+ year (vs. 2-3 years)

+Technology M&A Due Diligence Group in Mountain View and San Francisco, CA. Selected in a highly competitive interview process as one of only two interns on the Western USA. M&A projects include deals for HP & Diageo.

At Houldsworth, Russo & Co, Max worked on a variety of projects and training assignments in areas of business consulting, audit, review, and accounting for non-profit and small business clients, including United Way and Boys and Girls club. Worked part-time while studying full-time at university.

This selective program brings together global leaders across multiple verticals, world class Stanford GSB professors and explores factors that drive or inhibit growth, leadership skills and management systems needed to operate businesses more efficiently and tools to foster and sustain an entrepreneurial organizational culture. Cases and lectures explore questions rapidly growing companies face every day: need to apply business discipline vs the desire to stay entrepreneurial; pressures for growth on the part of equity partners; scaling management systems; how to put senior-level managers in place to handle operations, so you can focus on higher-level vision and strategy; understanding a leader’s role and responsibilities in facilitating a company’s growth.