Sam is an investor for Salesforce Ventures based in London. He is responsible for sourcing and due diligence of investment opportunities across EMEA. Prior to Salesforce, he worked in the TMT team for Deutsche Bank in London, advising clients on M&A and financing.

He holds a Master in Energy Management from ESCP Business School and a Bachelor in International Business with Spanish from Warwick Business School.

Sam grew up in Ghana and France and has also lived in the USA, Spain, and the UK. He is a member of SEO London, a UK-based association, where he volunteers as a mentor to support young people from ethnic minority or low socioeconomic backgrounds for career success in elite industries.

Tassbieh is a Senior Portfolio Development Analyst at Salesforce Ventures, where she collaborates with the firm’s portfolio companies to advance their impact. Before joining Salesforce Ventures, Tassbieh served as a senior solutions engineer in Salesforce’s New York City office, where she consulted with start-ups to Fortune 500s to devise and execute digital transformation initiatives and solutions for her clients.

Before Salesforce, she worked in a client-facing role at IBM Watson Health in Boston, establishing key client relationships and gaining experience in the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence. Tassbieh began her career as a product engineer at IBM, attaining several patents during her time there. Tassbieh holds a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Channing Nesbitt is a portfolio development senior analyst in the San Francisco office, where he works to support and accelerate growth for the Impact Fund portfolio. Channing manages the Impact Fund’s impact measurement and management process and works across the Salesforce ecosystem, prioritizing sustainability and ESG initiatives.

Before joining Salesforce Ventures, Channing worked at Tableau (a Salesforce company) as a Social Impact Program Manager, leading the $18 million Racial Justice Data Initiative. Channing holds a master’s degree in public administration & management from the Evans School at the University of Washington.

Lauryn Poyser is an Investor for the Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund, where she invests in ed-tech, sustainability tech, diversity and inclusion, social sector tech, and digital health.

Prior to joining Salesforce Ventures, Lauryn worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, advising clients across the renewables, power, and utility sectors. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Colgate University, earning a B.A. in International Public Policy Analysis, concentrated in Economics.

Alyssa supports the Salesforce Ventures Finance and Operations team and is responsible for financial reporting, business operations, and portfolio management. She works cross-functionally with internal business partners to ensure overall portfolio success.

Alyssa spent two years in investment banking at J.P. Morgan and RBC Capital Markets in New York City where she advised financial institutions on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and other strategic initiatives. Alyssa earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from the University of Arizona.

Emily is an investor at Salesforce Ventures focused on AI/ML in addition to spending time across developer tooling, cybersecurity, vertical SaaS, and health tech. She joined Salesforce Ventures in the spring of 2022 and recently helped launch its $250M Generative AI fund and led the initial investments in the fund, including Anthropic, Cohere, and you.com.

Before joining Salesforce Ventures, Emily was an investor at Avenir Growth Capital, a venture-growth fund based in New York, where she spent most of her time on vertical SaaS, health tech, and application software. Before Avenir, Emily was an associate in the Private Equity group at Blackstone and invested in corporate buyout transactions. She started her career at JPMorgan and holds a BA in Economics and Art History from Dartmouth.

John Somorjai is President of Salesforce Ventures. John helped found Salesforce Ventures in 2009 and since then the team has invested more than $5 billion in 400 companies from seed to IPO. Some of these investments include Auth0, BetterUp, Databricks, DocuSign, Guild Education, nCino, Snowflake, Snyk, Stripe, Vlocity, and Zoom.

In addition, since 2005, John has led the evaluation, deal execution, and integration of Salesforce’s strategic transactions, including mergers and acquisitions as EVP of Corporate Development. His team has helped bring the company into significant new growth areas and onboarded a number of key leaders through more than 80 acquisitions including Click, Datorama, Demandware, ExactTarget, MuleSoft, Quip, SteelBrick, Slack, Tableau, and Vlocity.

John served as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association from 2017 to 2021. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Lara Mouritsen is Head of Legal for Salesforce Ventures. She has a dynamic role advising on investments and portfolio matters. She also counsels the Salesforce Foundation, a non-profit private foundation, in corporate and governance issues. Prior to Salesforce, she was a corporate associate at Cooley where she represented investors, start-ups, and public tech companies in investments, acquisitions, and general corporate matters. She is also involved with pro bono projects supporting underserved groups and entrepreneurs.

She holds a JD from UC Hastings, College of the Law, and a BA from UC Santa Barbara in Global Studies and Spanish.

Kristi supports Salesforce Ventures’ global events program, hosting 20+ events annually for the Salesforce Ventures brand and portfolio, including Cloud 100 and the Salesforce Ventures experience at Dreamforce.

Throughout her career, Kristi has executed events for up to 18,000 attendees in over 15 US states and internationally in Canada, England, and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to joining Salesforce Ventures, Kristi curated event experiences for Google, Hilton, Keller Williams Realty, Nike, Samsung, and Target. Career highlights include leading Hilton’s EMEA Owner’s Conference in Dubai (and skiing in the world’s largest mall). She won the 2017 Gala Award for “Best Achievement in Logistics” from Special Events Magazine for pivoting a real estate convention in only eight days to a disaster relief event for hurricane victims.

Laura joined Salesforce Ventures in 2020. She invests across multiple stages in the US and EMEA, with a focus on dev ops, data stack, fintech, and web3. Laura worked on investments including Airbyte, BetterUp, Blockdaemon, dbt Labs, FireHydrant, Genesis Global, Lyra, OpenClassrooms, Mews, Popmenu, and Theta Lake. She is engaged in multiple efforts to increase diversity and improve access and opportunity in the technology ecosystem including leading Salesforce Ventures’ Women in VC and Female Founder initiatives.

Prior to Salesforce Ventures, Laura worked in strategy consulting where she advised companies and supported private equity transactions in the technology sector. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA with Honors in Theology from the University of Cambridge. Laura grew up in the UK but calls New York City home.