In preparation for Innovation Korea, our showcase event of work with Korean startups, Bisang Global, and KOTRA, participating startups received the opportunity to meet with experienced mentors from various industry sectors to ask questions based on their area of expertise.
The goal of the mentor sessions was to assist startups in creating an experience that demands an audience while increasing their overall visibility. The startups were broken up into five groups, allowing each group one hour with each mentor.
Each mentor offered insights and advice in areas such as investment, marketing, business development, operations, and technology. When planning an event such as this, it is vital to gain the participation of experts in the field, and we were very fortunate to have a wide range of mentors with such accomplished and diverse backgrounds.
Get to know our amazing mentors!
Meet Marlon Montgomery, Technology
As the CTO of MediaTech Ventures, Marlon is a trusted leader during high growth, acquisition, and transition periods adapting strategy to business vision and mission. He is highly creative and technically sophisticated with sharp business acumen. Throughout his career, Marlon has managed projects for various technology groups during his time at Lucasfilm Animation. He has held various production and technology management positions at DreamWorks in California, Vanguard Animation in London, and Laika Entertainment (formerly Vinton Studios). His projects include the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, visual effects for a number of feature films including Star Trek, Transformers, Iron Man, and animated features such as Shrek and Madagascar. As Co-Founder and CEO of Mind The Gap, he provided animation pipeline development and consulting services for the computer-generated animation industry. Committed to world-class execution, Marlon is passionate about bridging development efforts with market needs, with a strong focus on the client and user experience.
Meet Mike Millard, Investor
Mike spent over 20 years of his career in newly formed Fortune 500 divisions and venture capital, creating value at scale with engagements at Dell, HP, AT&T Knowledge Ventures, Ascension, and Austin Ventures. Over his career, he has routinely collaborated with hundreds of intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, and the innovation community to pilot and evaluate new technologies. Mike has performed extensive due diligence on potential portfolio investments or acquisitions, considering startups in various industries, including business services, social media, IoT, artificial intelligence, security, and mobile sectors.
Mike is currently an Operating Partner at Ecliptic Capital, LLC. Ecliptic Capital believes their approach is successful because they focus on sustainable business value, which is ultimately what drives investment returns.
Meet Brian Hammer, Business Development/Sales
Brian is the founder and CEO of Residual Media, a digital property development and sales representation firm designed to help companies maximize their marketing assets. He has held several roles with global companies, most recently as Vice President of sales at TCC Global, where he focused on retail marketing programs and SaaS for large retail chains. Previously, he held global enterprise sales roles at Salesforce and LinkedIn. During his time as Director of Online Marketing at Samsung, Brian managed the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which took 17% of the tablet market and knocked Apple’s share from 93% to 73%. As an account executive at Yahoo, his work included partnering with Nokia on the world’s first social media film directed by Spike Lee. Prior to working at Yahoo, Brian founded the digital agency IGLUE, Inc. and served as CEO until selling the company. His earlier career included work at ad agencies and working on the launch of Travelocity.com as marketing and promotions manager. At present, Brian is the Head of Sales for MediaTech Ventures.
Residual Media help companies create new types of marketing assets and deliver thinking that challenges the status quo. They help companies derive advertising and sponsorship revenue from places they never knew existed such as a digital game, a documentary, a podcast, a reality show, or a host of other media properties.
Meet Elijah May, Marketing
Elijah is a strategist who’s been building brands for over 20 years. He’s successfully helped companies articulate their mission, vision and values, while building brand promises. With a strong focus on corporate training, Elijah teaches companies how to create individual experiences and a broader culture that drives happiness and productivity in the workplace. As Managing Partner at The Experience Firm, he designs experiences to connect companies with their customers.
Elijah is now using his experience and expertise to build a brand for people who love robots. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Robotters, his brand is the world’s first recreational robotics arena for everyone, a playground for creative technologists. The core of Robotters is a place worth working, a culture of yes, and a deep-seated belief in the power of customer experience. Elijah’s vision is a world-class arena, but his mission is building bridges and knocking down walls.
Meet Kristie Whites, Operations
Kristie is a born data and marketing nerd who excels at creating & managing marketing systems, programs, campaigns, and international teams. Within her various roles, she’s had the privilege of working with amazing organizations such as Harley Davidson, Austin Regional Clinic, Women’s Business Council – Southwest, The Day Tripper, U.S. Department of Labor, University of Texas – Arlington, Austin Child Guidance Center, The DEC, BB&T, and more.
Kristie currently serves as the CMO of MediaTech Ventures. MediaTech Ventures unifies media technology for an ever-evolving economy. Founded in 2017, the holding corporation is dedicated to educating and moving public, private, and corporate capital into media-technology innovation.
On behalf of MediaTech Ventures, we give a big shout-out and thank you to the knowledgeable and skilled mentors above who took the time to answer questions and provide guidance to these budding entrepreneurs. Your willingness to share your time and proficiency in investments, marketing, business development, operations, and technology played a huge role, not only in the success of Innovation Korea but in the future success of these startups.
To the impressive entrepreneurs, thanks for your attentiveness and engagement in the mentor sessions. Best of luck to you all!
Want to meet the entrepreneurs? Stream Innovation Korea now.
I can’t put into words how wonderful it is that people step up for entrepreneurs, get together, work together, and make a difference. Thank you all, and here’s to great things with Korea and the many Korean startups we’ve had to honor of getting to know, working to expand with the United States and our network of partners and investors!
Stronger together than apart!
Entrepreneurship does NOT have to be a lonely journey!
So true! I think sometimes people forget that.
Kristie Whites it took me a long time to learn it
Thank you, Paul O’Brien and John Zozzaro! It takes a village… #grateful for the privilege and opportunity to be able to work with amazing entrepreneurs. And I think our Texas village is pretty awesome (I could be a bit biased).