Advisory Board

Bryan Guido Hassin (Lovett ’10) is an energy technology entrepreneur and global startup leader. He is cofounder and CEO of Smart OES, a rapidly growing IOT startup that uses artificial intelligence and behavioral science to optimize the energy use of large buildings and electrical grids. Passionate about aligning economic value with social value, he is also a Founding Director of givewatts.org, which deploys solar energy resources to schools and clinics throughout East Africa. Previously he has led IOT businesses around the world, including Poken, R7 Solutions, and Antmachine Technologies.

Bryan received his MBA with Honors and Leadership Distinction from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.  He has a Master’s in Computer Science and undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Computer Engineering from Rice, where he played football for the Owls and later served as Entrepreneur in Residence.  Bryan’s greatest achievement by far has been marrying Katie Barrett (Lovett ’04), with home he co-chaired Rice’s Centennial Homecoming and Reunion.

Emily Keeton is the Chief Financial Officer at Mercato, based in Houston.  Prior to her to Mercato, she was the Chief Operations Officer at Goodfair. And before that she was the Head of WeWork Labs Texas, after working as Global Head of M&A and Managing Director of the Creator Fund at the company.  Before her time at WeWork, she was co-Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for IAC, overseeing M&A activity across the IAC portfolio, as well as identifying new opportunities outside of the company’s existing focus areas.

Ms. Keeton has also served as Co-founder and CEO of Flavour, a food and restaurant discovery app acquired by Tasting Table Media in 2015. Prior to this, Ms. Keeton was Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Development at Scripps Networks Interactive, where she was responsible for M&A, partnerships and international strategic development. Previously, Ms. Keeton served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Ascent Media Group Inc., as well as Managing Director in the Media and Telecommunications Investment Banking division at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette (now Credit Suisse), where she worked on financing and strategic transactions for media and entertainment companies.

Ms. Keeton is the Co-Founder of Station Houston, a technology incubator in Houston, Texas. She received her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and her B.A. from Columbia University.

Frank Liu is the founder of Lovett Commercial, Lovett Homes, and InTown Homes.  Liu is a Chinese American, born in Taiwan.   At the age of 3, he moved to Saigon, Vietnam where Liu’s father took a position as a Textile Engineer.  He lived there during an interesting and historic time; he was there during the Tet Offensive, an event that would change many lives, including his own.  He left his family in Vietnam and came to the US in 1971, residing in Houston since 1973.

After graduating from Rice with a civil engineering degree, Liu’s family of companies began in 1980 when he and his Lovett college roommate started Lovett Homes, a premium urban residential development company.  In 1995, Frank began Lovett Commercial, specializing in commercial development and redevelopment.  In 2003, he started InTown Homes, a design-driven and environmentally-friendly residential development company working in emerging neighborhoods.

Through his various companies, he has developed over $3 billion in projects throughout Texas, including retail, office, industrial projects, adaptive reuse historic buildings and thousands of homes.  Additionally, his real estate projects have been the two time winner of two prestigious ULI (Urban Land Institute) First place awards.  He is a proud and active supporter, underwriter and board advisory member for many arts, education and community development organizations throughout the Houston area.

Liu has been married to Cindy for over 36 years and is the proud father of 2 sons, Kirby and Frank Jr.  He has been truly blessed to realize the American Dream.

Matt Harrigan is Co-founder and CEO of Company; he is also Managing Partner at CompanyVentures. In 2013 Matt cofounded Grand Central Tech, a highly-competitive no-equity-fee, year-long accelerator program. By 2018 the value of curating and co-locating top tier companies had made itself clear and the decision was made to expand. GCT thus evolved into what is now Company, a 1.1million-square-foot, multi-tenant tech campus in the heart of Manhattan. Tenants range from the firm’s community of 150 startups, to VC firms, to divisions ofFortune 500 companies. Company Ventures focuses on the startups that inhabit Company, leveraging the advantages of time and proximity to both support and evaluate the companies.In addition to his role at Company, Matt serves on the boards of The Advisory Council for NYCx, New York City’s municipal tech engagement program; and WiTNY, Women in Tech New York.Matt started his career at Booz Allen Hamilton in international economic development. His clients were primarily USAID and the World Bank, leading Matt to spend the better part of 3 years living and working inAfrica:Ghana, Zimbabwe, and primarily Tanzania. After Booz, Matt worked as an innovation strategy consultant at Fahrenheit 212. From there, he moved to ESPN, overhauling the analytics infrastructure across all mobile products.

Matt is a graduate of Rice University, earning a BA in history and foreign policy studies.He currently sits on the board of theNYC Leadership Council for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Matt is a New York native and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Rebecca, and their son, Henry. He is an avid skier, and a loyal, if also laboring, Mets and Rangers fan

Rakesh Agrawal is the Founder and CEO of SnapStream Media, Inc., whose software enables the Daily Show, John Oliver, the White House and a few hundred others to record and search TV.

Rakesh is also a direct investor in 100+ early stage software and life science companies and a limited partner in a variety of venture capital and cryptocurrency hedge funds. Rakesh’s investments include Cruise Automation (acquired by GM), Onit, Lowercase Capital, and Wag.

Rakesh grew up in Houston and New Delhi, India. He serves on the boards of Houston Exponential and the Post Oak School.  He graduated from Rice University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BA in Computer Science. Rakesh and his wife Shonali have three children.

Yan-David Erlich is the current Managing Director of Coatue Management. Previously, he was the Founder & CEO of Parsable (formerly known as Wearable Intelligence), a Silicon Valley based company transforming the lives, productivity, and safety for the 70% of the global workforce whose jobs aren’t performed at a desk. Parsable is replacing paper & walkie talkies with Sera: a collaboration app for industrial teams. With it, enterprises can digitize their procedures and have their mobile workforce collaboratively execute them for the first time. Parsable is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and a handful of angels.

Mr. Erlich was also a Managing Partner at Outlier Ventures (a micro seed fund), and a founding Venture Partner at MuckerLab, Los Angeles’ premier startup accelerator. Prior, Mr. Erlich was the Founder & CEO of ChoiceVendor, which was acquired by LinkedIn (LNKD) in 2010. He was also the Founder & CEO of Mogad, which was acquired by iSkoot (now a division of Qualcomm: QCOM) in 2008, and the Founder of Happiness Engines. Yan-David has been an Entrepreneur in Residence at Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures, and Battery Ventures. He started his career with software engineering and product management roles at both Google and Microsoft and holds Bachelor of Science degrees in both Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering from Rice University and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (class of ’05).

Yan-David enjoys advising other entrepreneurs and counts himself fortunate to have been involved since the early stages with companies including Mixer Labs (acq Twitter), Thumbtack, MasterClass, CircleUp, Twenty20, and Vidme. Mr. Erlich has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Fox, The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

Bobby Tudor is a Partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, where he co-heads the firm’s Investment Banking Business. He also serves as the Chairman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. which combined with Perella Weinberg Partners in November 2016. TPH is a leading Energy Investment and Merchant bank that was formed in 2007 and has over 180 employees in five offices in the US, Canada and UK.  It is widely recognized for its industry leading position in Energy securities research, Energy investment banking advisory transactions, and Energy asset management.

Prior to forming TPH, Mr. Tudor was a Partner at Goldman Sachs and a leader of its worldwide Energy practice. Over his 30-plus year career in Investment Banking, he has worked on many of the defining transactions of the period, across most energy subsectors and geographies.

Mr. Tudor serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Rice University, and is also on the Board of Directors of Deltic Timber Corporation, the National Petroleum Council, the Houston Symphony, the MD Anderson Board of Visitors, and the New York Philharmonic, among others.  He holds a BA in English and Legal Studies from Rice University, and a JD from Tulane.