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A true FinTech pioneer, Shamir Karkal played a crucial part in building the infrastructure that would pave the way for online banking. In 2009, he co-founded Simple, the first bank of its kind in the United States, and later headed the Open Platform at BBVA.

Shamir was drawn to serve smaller companies, co-founding Sila in 2018 with the goal of empowering financial innovations.

Shamir studied physics and computer science at Bangalore University and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys jiu-jitsu, long-range target shooting, and studying history whenever possible.

An accomplished mathematician, financial executive, author, and professor, Alex Lipton worked for Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Bankers Trust before serving as Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for ten years.

Alex received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in pure mathematics from Moscow University and was awarded the first Quant of the Year Award by Risk Magazine in 2000. He is the author of three books and more than 100 papers on financial engineering and the future of money. FinTech is one of his areas of greatest interest, and he is a frequent keynote speaker at Quantitative Finance and FinTech conferences and forums around the world.

Angela is a webmaster turned fintech lawyer with a distinguished career at Reed Smith and Latham & Watkins. She is an early distributed ledger technology adopter and a leading authority in the evolving global legal and regulatory landscape surrounding distributed ledger technology and smart contracts. Prior to co- founding Sila, Angela served as the Chief Legal & Compliance Officer of Digital Asset and was part of the founding team.

Angela left Digital Asset Holdings to pursue two endeavors that would marry her interests in technology, finance, and law. She serves as co-founder and Chief Legal Officer at Sila, and she's also a co-founder and practicing attorney at DLx Law, a revolutionary blockchain firm.

Originally from Yugoslavia, Angela now lives in the D.C. area with her husband and children. When time allows, Angela enjoys reading, cooking, and fine dining.

A former finance director and general manager in the energy sector, Isaac Hines has overseen a number of notable projects at various nuclear facilities. He served as Director of Finance at Constellation Energy and Deputy General Manager of a new nuclear build in Maryland. He later managed construction engineering and licensing at NuScale Power.

Raised in North Carolina, Isaac joined the Navy after high school, where he worked as a nuclear operator. He studied accounting, political science, and economics at Western Michigan University and received his MBA and Master of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon.

Isaac has a passion for learning and problem-solving. He was eager to take on a new challenge with the founding of Sila, which has provided him the opportunity to pair his finance background with his interest in the merging of blockchain, banking, and securities. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, working out, and playing video games with his children.

During his time as Executive Director of the MIT Kerberos Consortium, Dr. Thomas Hardjono championed the most ubiquitously deployed authentication protocol in the world today. Over the past two decades, his expansive career has included roles as Distinguished Engineer at Bay Networks, Principal Scientist at VeriSign PKI, and CTO roles at several startups. He currently serves as Director of the MIT Trust Data Consortium.

Chuck Muckenfuss, a graduate of Yale Law School, brings more than forty years of senior financial services experience to the table. He’s served as Senior Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, Counsel to the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Partner at Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher LLP. Chuck is a leader in financial institution supervision, and he’s been at the forefront of community development and financial inclusion as a thought leader and skilled practitioner.

Jerry Neumann has spent years investing in early-stage companies through Neu Venture Capital, and he teaches a course on entrepreneurship at Columbia University’s engineering school. Before becoming an investor, Jerry co-founded Root Markets, one of the earliest marketing information exchanges, and he worked as one of the hardware-design engineers on IBM’s S/390 series of mainframes.

Named one of the world’s seven most powerful data scientists by Forbes, Alex "Sandy" Pentland is a founding member of advisory boards for Google, AT&T, Nissan, and the UN Secretary General. Professor Pentland has co-founded more than a dozen companies. He helped to create and direct the MIT Media Lab and Media Lab Asia, and he currently directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics Labs.