Farley Center Welcomes Four New Advisory Board Members
Four Northwestern alumni have joined the Farley Center’s advisory board, bringing experience in AI and consumer tech, strategy consulting, health tech investing, and industrial software.
Oct 27, 2026
The Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has welcomed four new members to its advisory board: Suchit Dash, Dalia Diab, Lauren Risenhoover, and Akshat Thirani. They bring deep knowledge of building and scaling ventures, along with a commitment to helping Northwestern University students develop the mindset, skills, and network to pursue their ideas.
Meet the New Advisory Board Members
Dash is chief product officer at Arena, a community-powered platform that measures and advances the frontier of AI for real-world use. He previously served as vice president of core product at Reddit, and cofounded Dubsmash, where he served as president until its acquisition by Reddit. Dash holds a BSE in industrial engineering and economics from Northwestern and brings experience building consumer products from early-stage startup through acquisition and scale.
Diab is a strategist at Jump Associates, a strategy and innovation consulting firm. A recent Northwestern graduate with a BS in manufacturing and design engineering and a minor in entrepreneurship, she was a Farley Center student ambassador and a design engineering intern at the Segal Design Institute. She also interned in mechanical engineering at Inspire Medical Systems. Diab brings a recent student's perspective on Farley's programs to the board.
Risenhoover is the founder of Risen Health, a fractional consulting firm that advises health tech startups on fundraising and go-to-market strategy. She was previously a digital health investor at 7wire Ventures and a health care investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs. Risenhoover holds a BA in neuroscience from Northwestern and is pursuing an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Thirani is the cofounder and former CEO of Amper Technologies, a Chicago-based manufacturing execution software company he started at The Garage as a Northwestern senior in 2016. He continues to lead Amper following its acquisition by ECI Software Solutions. Thirani advises and invests in early-stage industrial technology and deep tech companies, and holds a BS in computer science from Northwestern.
