CivStart is excited to welcome three new members to its board, who began their terms at the February Annual Board meeting. The three new members are in addition to the three co-founders of CivStart, Anthony Jamison, Sarah Kerner, and Nick Lyell. Kamran Saddique, Stacey EV Wood Jackson, and Brian Purchia bring a range of important skills, connections, and experience in the government technology landscape to CivStart’s board, and we are proud to have them as a part of the team.
Take a look below for more on the impressive experience these new board members will bring to our mission to build inclusive bridges between startups and state and local governments.
Kamran is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of City Innovate for the past 6 years. Much of Kamran's professional experience is in financial engineering around new technology ventures.
Previously he served as head of investments to a company owned by one of the royal family members in Abu Dhabi, UAE and prior to that as the VP of Private Equity for Convergence Capital in the Dubai International Financial Centre, responsible for closing transactions of interest to the general partners in Real Estate, Aviation, Mining, Water Desalination, Carbon Credits, Health, Education, Media. Kamran has a Masters Degree in International Business from Aston Business School (UK) and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). Kamran was born and raised in the United Kingdom and has an 8-year old daughter.
Stacey is a partner sales executive at Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector (AWS WWPS). Prior to this role, she spent three years leading startup business development at AWS, managing outreach efforts and sales alignment strategies with startups building technology and services for the federal and state and local governments.
Stacey joined Amazon from the U.S. Department of State where she was a Foreign Service Officer for eight years. While with the State Department, Stacey lived and worked in China and in Ghana, and helped shape government policy around innovation, entrepreneurship, and the digital economy. Stacey speaks Mandarin and has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Brian is the CEO of Riff City Strategies and Co-Founder of CivicMakers. A long-time media and public policy strategist, he has led some of the most high profile efforts at the intersection of government and technology.
Brian is a long time strategic advisor for San Francisco Office of Civic Innovation and was the driving force behind the nation’s first open data law, open source software policy, and API for government. The media and public policy strategist also helped build the City of Porto Alegre, Brazil’s Office of Civic Innovation, modeled after the work he led for former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. He has advised and led communications for tech start-ups, politicians, VCs, and civic tech organizations. Before opening his own communications and public policy firm, Brian worked in media, as a reporter in Washington, DC.