Meet the people of
Human Capital

Armaan Ali is the cofounder and Chief Executive of Human Capital. He chairs the investment committee, is responsible for capital raising and helps set the company’s strategic vision. In his role, he also oversees the development of Human Capital’s network of 5,000+ members. To date, Human Capital has raised more than $125 million and has invested in companies including Anduril, Applied Intuition, Brex, Bolt, Clumio, HVMN, Impira, Livongo Health (NASDAQ: LVGO), Nova Credit, Observe, Shogun Enterprises, Snowflake Computing and Surprise HR. Prior to founding Human Capital, Armaan was a member of the investment team at General Catalyst. He holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University, where he cofounded and served as CFO of the Stanford Social Entrepreneurial Students’ Association (SENSA). Armaan’s exposure to business came at an early age. He began serving as the Official Taste- Tester at his family’s confectionery business in Bangladesh at age six. He now shares his passion for snacking with his miniature Bernese mountain dog, Turtle.

Baris Akis is the cofounder and President of Human Capital. He is responsible for setting the company’s strategic vision and leads the company’s work with ambitious entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to life. As a thought partner to Human Capital’s entrepreneurial members, Baris has supported the visionary founders of companies including Brex, Bolt, Impira, Nova Credit, Shogun Enterprises and Surprise HR. Prior to founding Human Capital, Baris attended Stanford University where he graduated early with a BS in Computer Science. Over the course of his freshman and sophomore years, he founded and sold a web-development automation business. Baris also cofounded and served as president of the Stanford Social Entrepreneurial Students’ Association (SENSA). Baris spent most of his time at Stanford meeting with hundreds of his ambitious peers and discussing ways he can support their careers. His insights from those conversations created the foundational ideas behind Human Capital. To date, Baris has personally guided over 500 software engineers through critical career decisions and negotiations. He has a deep understanding of the engineer’s career trajectory and brings this perspective to all of Human Capital’s strategic decisions and offerings. Raised in Istanbul, Baris always had a passion for supporting ambitious peers. When he was in high school, Baris founded the Youth Vision Association, a national non-profit, that partnered with the United Nations to help underprivileged high school students develop critical professional and communication skills.

Brandon (Stanford CS ’16) brings his love for building and understanding systems to many aspects of Human Capital. He leads the development of our platform, which supports the automation, infrastructure, and resources that allows us to make our impact at scale and serves as Chief of Staff to our CBO. During his undergrad, Brandon was one of the initial Human Capital team members at Stanford and was also on the gymnastics team while completing his CS degree. After graduation, Brandon joined Lending Club as a software engineer, where he worked on encryption and optical character recognition projects. After some time in industry, he realized that helping build Human Capital and shaping the industries of the future would require his complete attention and decided to join the team full time. Brandon is driven by innovations that make society more productive and life more fruitful. In his spare time, you can find him running, reading, or hosting dinner parties.

Prior to joining Human Capital, Peter Cetale was the CEO and co-founder of the SaaS startup Religio. The company provided payment solutions processing and CRM systems to nonprofits across the country. Peter led the company to be successfully acquired in December of 2019. Peter is a graduate of Cornell University class of 2019. During his time at Cornell, he was the co-founder and President of the Cornell Entrepreneurship Club, where he helped connect engineers to nontechnical founders to start companies. Additionally, he was the co-founder and Vice President of the Cornell Marketing Organization. Peter currently serves as the President and founder of Ivy League Entrepreneurs, which combines all eight Ivy League schools entrepreneurship clubs. Mr. Cetale is on the board of various startups and, in addition to his interest in venture, enjoys playing chess in his spare time.

Ashwin leads investor relations and fund operations. In his role he helps in fundraising, reporting and communications with investors, managing the back office and preparing the platform for scaling though building systems and processes. He also frequently liaises with our portfolio company CEOs to help them think through growth, operations and fundraising. Ashwin has 25 years of work experience spread across management consulting at Arthur Andersen and McKinsey, then investing at Mubadala and Softbank and also was Chief Business Officer at a consumer hardware startup called Hello. Ashwin is a Chemical Engineer from University of Pune in India and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel brings 8 years of agency recruiting experience to the Human Capital industry practice. He has focused on the SF Bay Area startup scene his entire career and is most excited by mission-driven companies that help to shape the future. After leaving college his Junior year to begin recruiting full time he returned to graduate from Arizona State University in 2014 with a B.S in Communication. Outside of work Daniel enjoys barbecuing and going to concerts with his wife.

Ryan comes to us from Airbnb where he most recently supported the engineering, product and design leaders on the Guest team. He studied linguistics and psychology at UCLA and briefly enrolled at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis post-graduation to study clinical audiology. At Human Capital, Ryan supports our Chief Executive and Chief Business Officer and brings a programmatic and operational focus to how Human Capital operates internally and externally. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, yoga and reading a good book.

Shawn (Carnegie Mellon ECE; UCLA MBA) is a Principal on the University Team. He began his career working in technical sales and technical project management roles at Texas Instruments, Google, and Box. After earning his MBA, Shawn worked in venture capital on the Investment Team at BuildersVC, where he grew his interest in early-stage, high-growth tech companies. At Human Capital, Shawn draws from his versatile background to share his perspective with our University Members. Outside of work, Shawn loves working-out, playing chess, and shooting pool.

Andrew is a Director at Human Capital focused on building our experienced-hire recruiting engine. He comes to us through an acquisition of Khonvo, a tech-enabled recruiting firm he co-founded 3 years ago. Prior to Khonvo, Andrew spent time at Redpoint Ventures working with early stage founders helping them build and execute on their technical hiring roadmap. He also helped scale Addepar during its formative era and spent time at Google building engineering teams. Outside of the talent realm, Andrew enjoys playing hockey, golf, and exploring the dramatic scenery California offers. He lives in the South Bay with his wife and their dog, Frankie.

Neelan studied EECS at the University of Illinois and graduated in December of 2018. While on campus Neelan co-founded two startups and led EntreCORPS as a partner. Neelan joined Human Capital as a Principal in 2019 and works closely with our University members. Outside of work you can find him struggling to learn how to cook, listening to lots of music, and reading anything/everything about tech.

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