Advisory Board
Desky is a longtime mentor at The Garage and previously served at the marketing helm of Groupon. Desky has led marketing at a range of other startups, including Tempus, a tech startup that helps physicians make data-driven decisions. Desky has a BS and MS from Northwestern University.
Sarah Farley Huskey
Huskey is a board member of the Farley Family Charitable Foundation. She has an MA from Northwestern University.
Kosmowski is CEO of LogicMonitor, a cloud-based infrastructure monitoring and observability platform provider. She holds board positions at Rapid7, Marin Academy, and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern. Previously, she was CCO and VP at Slack and senior vice president at Salesforce. Kosmowski has a BSIE from Northwestern and attended Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Lu is the vice chair of renewable energy infrastructure and clean private equity at Schroders Capital and has over 25 years of international telecommunications industry experience. She has held multiple leadership positions, including chair of Zap and CEO of Springs Design, and previously served as the managing partner and founder at Cathaya Funds. She serves on the McCormick Advisory Council. Lu also founded ViDeOnline in 2004 and served as its CEO until 2008. Lu has a BS and MS from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD from Northwestern University.
McDonnell is an investor in companies including SoFi, Affirm, and Robinhood. She is the managing partner and founder of Menlo Group. Previously, she was the CEO, cofounder, and board chair of Limelife, which was later acquired by Total Beauty Media. McDonnell is the president of the Northwestern Alumni Association and serves on its board of directors. Additionally, she serves on the Northwestern University Board of Trustees. McDonnell has a BS from Northwestern and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Shahani-Mulligan holds a board position at ConocoPhillips and serves as a strategic adviser, investor, and board member at startups and high-growth tech companies. She is on Weinberg's Board of Visitors. She has held leadership positions at seven technology companies before she founded and was CEO of her own data analytics company, ClearStory Data. ClearStory was acquired by public company Alteryx, where she served as chief strategy officer. Shahani-Mulligan has a BS, BA, and MBA from Northwestern.
Owen is managing partner at Little Joe Ventures. He was formerly managing partner at Frontera Hospitality Group and worked for Toyota Motor Sales, USA where he specialized in product development and marketing for Lexus brand vehicles. Owen has a BA and an MBA from Northwestern.
Oxnam is founder and CEO of Cue the Curves, a social shopping platform designed to help plus-sized women discover clothing that fits their size and style. In addition, she is partnerships associate at Whatnot. She served as program manager of the Propel program at The Garage and was awarded first place in the 2023 VentureCat competition. Oxnam has a BS from Northwestern.
Padula is a serial entrepreneur who founded, among other ventures, Mirata Software and Syclo, one of the leading providers of enterprise mobile solutions. He serves on the McCormick Advisory Council. He is a general partner at R7 and an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University. He holds a BS from Northwestern.
Qadir is founder and CEO of Hubly Surgical, a medical device company that manufactures cranial access drills. She developed her startup while in Farley’s NUvention: Medical course and has been entrepreneur in residence at The Garage since 2020. In addition to her entrepreneurial pursuits, she has earned recognition as a Chemistry of Life Processes Scholar at Northwestern. Qadir has a BA from Northwestern and an MS from Johns Hopkins University.
Raman is a member at Chief, a private network focused on connecting and supporting executive women leaders. In the past she served as vice president of Global Government Affairs at Cruise and Head of North America State and Local Government Relations at Lyft. In addition, Raman worked as Associate Director of Healthcare and Human Services for the Office of the Illinois Governor. Raman has a BS from Northwestern, a JD from Illinois Institute of Technology, and an MPH from University of Illinois Chicago.
Sachs is co-founder of Ares Management. He also serves as an investment committee member on all Ares Management funds and is a partner in the Ares Strategy and Relationship Management Group. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Trustees and the McCormick Advisory Council at Northwestern. He was previously a principal of Onyx Partners and, before that, worked at Taylor & Co. Sachs has a BS from Northwestern.
Sales-Griffin is a Farley Center faculty member and is the managing director at Techstars in San Francisco, Oakland and Chicago, a worldwide network for entrepreneurs. He serves as a board member for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the Turing School of Software & Design, and the Share Winter Foundation. He previously worked as CEO of CodeNow. Sales-Griffin has a BS from Northwestern.
Shaw volunteers as a consultant and adviser to numerous startups, as well as Farley classes. He has also volunteered at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Field Museum. He serves on the McCormick Advisory Council. Previously, he spent nearly 30 years as the co-owner and vice president of Milex Products, a small medical device company. Shaw has a BSME and MM from Northwestern.
Stojka is the CEO of Nexus3 Capital. Previously he served as CEO for Agentis Energy, an energy technology company delivering wireless energy management systems for commercial and industrial applications. He serves on the McCormick Advisory Council. Previously, he was the co-founder and board member of Sertifi, as well as CEO and co-founder of Commerx Corporation. Stojka has a BSIE from Northwestern.
Warren is a software consultant and adjunct faculty member for the Farley Center and computer science department at McCormick. He serves on the McCormick Advisory Council. He has served as Interim Director Software at Ford Motor Company and is also a venture capitalist and managing director, partner, and investor in Divergent Ventures, focusing on early-stage companies. Warren worked for Microsoft for over 20 years in a variety of product management, general management, and product development roles. He also has served on the boards of Ashesi University Foundation, Socedo, TempoIQ, ReadyPulse, and Pcubed. Warren has a BA from Northwestern.
Yang is chairman and co-founder of Modal, an E-learning company focused on employee learning. In the past, he was CEO of Udemy. He currently serves as an Adviser at GoStudent, LingoAce, and Workera.ai, as well as on the advisory board for Lumos Capital Group. He is also a Northwestern alumni regent for the San Francisco bay area. He has a BS from Northwestern, as well as an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.