INNW team alongside its mentors & advisors network have extensive expertise in mentoring startup founders, through the challenges and complexities of starting and growing a successful business.
Wen Zhang
Founder & CEO
As an accomplished dealmaker in a fast-paced, technology business environment, Wen & the INNW team has extensive experience in enterprise B2B business development. She has managed hundreds of sales members across the North American region, with experience and specialization in hardware, software, and service-based products and business models for small to large-cap businesses.
Her strategic insight and knowledge in corporate marketing strategy as well as her own startup journey have prompted her to take that experience to contribute to the start-up ecosystem and support entrepreneurs in their business pursuits. For the past two years, Wen has worked with hundreds of start-ups to support founders with their presentation skills and go-to-market strategy, Seeing the success of many of her clients, Wen founded The International INNW Institute with a mission to help start-up founders grow and scale their business, utilizing a tried and tested framework for investment pitches and B2B sales strategies.
Wen holds an MBA degree from Duke University and a Master in Marketing and Advertising from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Eric Chief Operating Officer of the International INNW Institute and also the Managing Partner of Zapinus Investments LLC. Before starting at INNW, Eric was Chief Operating Officer of International Accelerator, with the mission to empower and enable foreign-born entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business in the US.
He is responsible for investor relations, deal sourcing, business development, operations, mentoring, and financial oversight. Prior to joining Internation Accelerator he was a project manager at HDR Engineering, a multi- national engineering consulting firm with a focus on projects for energy markets, publicly regulated utilities, and large infrastructure upgrades. He is also a licensed professional engineer in Texas, Illinois, New Mexico, and Louisiana.
Eric has been an avid investor both in the private and public markets. He has been trading equities and derivatives since 2008, and has recently transitioned into angel investing in the SaaS and Med-Tech sectors. Eric graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Eric Kapinus
COO
Mentors & Advisory
During this phase of the program, we will be matching up companies with
specific mentors of the INNW network. Each week for six consecutive weeks,
startups will be meeting with their mentors to take a 360-degree dive into each business. During these sessions, mentors and founders will be strategizing about
fundraising, sales, marketing, product, legal, and operations. INNW will be
facilitating each meeting and documenting conversations, tactics, goals, and
strategies with the intent of building an execution playbook for each startup to implement after program graduation. The following mentors have been handselected for this KIC/INNW acceleration program.
INNW Mentors
OMAR ZAKI
Expertise
MATT SPARKS
Expertise
MICHAEL RADIGAN
Expertise
DAVID FRANKLIN
Expertise
FRANK GINAC
Expertise
MATT WIGLE
Expertise
WILL SIMPSON
Expertise
KEN PLATT
Expertise
YUEN YUNG
Expertise
RAJESH GOPI
Expertise
PAUL O'BRIEN
Expertise
SCOTT THOMAS
Expertise
MARC NATHAN
Expertise
LUCAS CHAYA DEL PINO
Expertise
BROOKE BAINS
Expertise
CHELSEA TOLER
Expertise
MARIA MASO
Expertise
JEANNIE EDMUNDS
Expertise
JASON SCHARF
Expertise
ANNA GISHKO
Expertise
AMIT PATEL
Expertise
JOE MAGYER
Expertise
As we entered the American market, one of our challenges was to clearly convey what our company does to US investors, because we work in a specialized industry - healthcare. Wen was amazing with understanding what we do and all the concepts. INNW helped us translating our message into a simple, investor’s language while adding value to it.
- Jorge Mejia
Founder/CEO of MAIA