Michael V. Avon, EVP & CFO, Millennial Media
Michael Avon serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Millennial Media, where he is responsible for the company’s overall financial, legal, and corporate development activities. He has spent the past decade building early-stage and growth companies as a venture capitalist, operator, entrepreneur, and attorney.
Most recently, Michael was a Principal at Columbia Capital, a leading communications and media-focused venture capital fund, where he focused on digital media, wireless and consumer internet investments, such as Avail-TVN, Social Gaming Network, Webs.com, Gizmoz, GoAhead Software, and Millennial Media. Michael was also a venture capitalist with Toucan Capital, and led Business Development at FOLIOfn.
Michael has a BA, with Distinction, from the University of Virginia and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Aaron Benway, CFO, HelloWallet
Aaron Benway is an expert in corporate finance and serves as the HelloWallet CFO.
Prior to joining HelloWallet, Aaron was the Executive Director of Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis at General Motors. Before GM he was a Principal at The Carlyle Group within the US Growth Equity team. Aaron began his career in finance within the private equity arm of Deutsche Bank.
Aaron graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in electrical engineering and initially served as a nuclear engineer aboard the USS California. He later served at the Pentagon as a planning officer within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J2. Aaron earned a masters of business administration from Harvard University.
Mary Dridi, CFO, GeoStellar
Ms. Dridi is an accomplished Chief Financial Officer with a wide range of experience and success with both private and public technology companies. From 1998 – 2005 she served as CFO of webMethods and was instrumental in the growth and management of webMethods,Inc, which achieved revenue growth of $200 million from 1998 to 2002. She also led the company’s IPO which was the most successful software IPO to date in 2000.
In 2002, Ms. Dridi was named CFO of the Year by the Northern Virginia, Maryland and DC Technology Councils. Ms. Dridi currently serves on the Board of Directors of Three Pillar Global and was previously on the Board of Directors of Metastorm from 2008 to 2011 when it was acquired. Ms. Dridi provides CFO consulting and advisory services to technology companies and is currently serving as CFO Advisor to Geostellar, Inc.
Thomas Kramer, CFO, OPower
Thomas Kramer is responsible for financial management, HR, and administrative stewardship at Opower. Previously, he was CFO at Cvent, the largest event-management technology company in the US, where he helped grow the organization from its founding to profitability and 850 employees, and where he led the largest software financing round in the US since 2007. Prior to joining Cvent, Thomas served as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he developed e-commerce strategy and management analyses for leading North American corporations. Prior to that, he was a senior consultant at Accenture. Thomas was recently named one of the 10 best CFOs in Washington, DC by SmartCEO. He earned a Master's at the Norwegian School of Economics, and an MBA at Harvard Business School, with a focus on strategy and finance.
