Board of Directors

Sakya is the founder and Chief Executive officer of EdgeCortix. Prior to founding EdgeCortix, Sakya was a Senior Research Scientist and Executive Lead for Embodied Robotics at IBM Research. He has over a decade of experience in cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software research, building teams from the ground up, and creating real-world AI solutions. Sakya is the inventor of over 20 patents and has published widely on AI and edge computing with over 800 citations. In addition, he is on the editorial board Frontiers in Neurorobotics at Frontiers in Robotics & AI. Frontiers is the 3rd most-cited and 6th largest research publisher and open science platform.

Previously, Sakya was the CTO & acting CEO at Neuri Pte Ltd., a spin-out from Ascent Robotics. He was the Chief Scientific Officer at Ascent Robotics, Inc. and help with a $10.3M raise to accelerate AI development for autonomous driving. Sakya holds a PhD from Max Planck Institute, Germany, and a Masters in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh.

Mike currently heads Vajra Direct, a US-based investment firm focused on making direct venture and private equity investments in technology-enabled businesses. Prior to Vajra, Mike was co-founder and CEO of Signal Digital, Inc. an enterprise SaaS technology company acquired by TransUnion in 2020. While at Signal, Mike raised $59M in venture capital and scaled the company from a 5 person startup to over 150 people with a presence on four continents. Prior to co-founding Signal, Mike was part of the original Orbitz management team and held the positions of CMO and COO. While at Orbitz, Mike helped take the business from startup to IPO, then through two acquisitions (Cendant and Blackstone). After Orbitz, he joined The Pritzker Group as a partner on their private equity team. Mike also has held management roles at General Motors Corporation and Leo Burnett, a global advertising agency. Board experience includes Angie’s List (ticker ANGI) acquired by IAC subsidiary HomeAdvisor, YouBet.com (ticker UBET) acquired by Churchill Downs and a number of private company startups. During his tenure as Signal’s CEO, Mike was recognized with several honors, including the 2015 EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. He has degrees from Northwestern University and the J.L. Kellogg School of Management. He and his family live in Chicago.

Som has had a lengthy career spanning equities, credit and the rates derivatives markets. Som is currently the Senior-Portfolio manager for the SPAC portfolio at Linden Advisors. He started the SPAC portfolio strategy in 2018, and before that, he started and ran the Volatility Arbitrage & Rates Hedging portfolio at Linden from 2008 - 2018. Together, these lines of businesses have produced almost $900m USD in returns for the Advisory fund. Before joining Linden, Som was a Principal Managing Director at Bear Stearns Asset Management where he ran volatility and credit hedging portfolios. Prior to Bear Stearns, Som started the Equity derivatives trading desk for PNC Bank in Pittsburgh, a key capability the regional bank lacked, and consequently paid away in fees and trading profits, to New York banks for all its derivatives needs associated with PNC’s large wealth management portfolio. Som was at PNC for 5 years. Before PNC Som was at JP Morgan; first, in the quantitative research wing of the bank’s global equity-derivatives desk and then as a proprietary trader for the quant-trading group. Som was at JP Morgan for 8 years. Previous to his JP Morgan employment, Som was an Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate and Undergraduate schools, teaching Finance and Mathematical Methods in Finance. Som received a B.Sc in Economics in 1984 from Calcutta University and a Ph.D. in Financial Economics in 1992 from Syracuse University. Som and his family live in Tenafly, New Jersey.

Michael Brodsky is an investor, entrepreneur and manager based in Washington, DC and Chicago, IL. Michael is currently the CEO and co-founder of Options Solutions, a specialized asset manager. The firm focuses on using stock options to help former corporate executives, institutional investors, family offices, foundations, private equity and venture investment firms generate incremental income, hedge assets and assist in position divestiture, as well as managing diversified portfolios while enhancing them with low-risk options strategies. He is also the co-founder and a Manager of Vajra Direct, a firm focused on making direct venture and private equity investments in technology-enabled businesses. Michael is also currently the Chairman of the Board of PowerFleet, Inc., (PWFL) a transportation and logistics technology company. Previously, Michael managed concentrated direct public investing for the Pritzker family in Chicago. As a manager of these public equity investments, Michael has served on the boards of nine public companies, six times as Chairman and twice as CEO. These companies ranged from software and hardware, eCommerce and digital marketing and printing to hospitality, gaming and home building. Michael is a graduate of Syracuse University, BA, Northwestern University, JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management, MBA and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, JD, where he is a member of the school’s Advisory Board. He and his family live in Washington DC.

Educated as a lawyer and trained as a banker, Ken now runs his own family office investing in deep tech startups and hedge funds. Previously he was the founder and managing partner of East Gate Capital Pte. Ltd which over the course of 16 years managed major China pre-IPO funds backed by Japanese institutional investors. Prior to that Ken spent over a decade in the banking industry in roles such as the Asia Pacific Head of Barclays Capital and Asia Pacific Head of Structured Finance at JP Morgan, both based in Tokyo. Between 1998 and 2001, Ken was the managing director of Bear Stearns in Tokyo. During his extensive banking career, Ken has also served as the head of Asia Pacific for structured products of Warburg Dillion Read, specializing in equity, forex trading and quantitative derivative, as well as regulatory arbitrage. From 1989 to 1992, he worked for Allen & Gledhill as a corporate lawyer in Singapore. Ken graduated from the University of Singapore with a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and also holds a Master’s Degree in Law from Cambridge University, England.