Lak Ananth is an Indian American venture capitalist who has spent much of his career focused on identifying industry changing disruptions and acting on them as an investor or acquirer. He is the author of Anticipate Failure: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Navigating Uncertainty, Avoiding Disaster, and Building a Successful Business, a practical guide for business leaders on the most common patterns of failure in innovation, featuring never-before-heard stories on how some of the most successful founders and executives in the world have navigated failure to get to success. He is the founding CEO and Managing Partner of the global venture capital firm Next47 which is backed by Siemens AG and partners with the best entrepreneurs to help them build companies that will change how the world works. Lak has spent his career in service to the entrepreneurial pursuit. In addition to running Next47, he serves on the board of several companies that he has helped to grow beyond $1B valuations. As an investor and board member, he believes in establishing mutual trust with founders so when critical business decisions need to be made, he can support them in making the best choices for building world-class new businesses. Lak holds an MBA from INSEAD and The Wharton School of Business. He is also a Kauffman Fellow (Class 12).

Sunita Patel is the chief business development officer for Silicon Valley Bank and leads all business development operations for SVB. With more than 25 years of experience in lending to companies across the innovation economy, Sunita is a highly regarded leader with an expansive network across the venture ecosystem. 

Most recently, Sunita served as president of the Technology and Life Sciences division at Comerica and, before that, led their venture capital group for 20 years. Before joining Comerica, she began her career as an assistant vice president at SVB.

Sunita earned her bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from Missouri Southern State University. She has been a longtime member and was an early sponsor of the VCNetwork, a group that promotes networking among general partners of Bay Area venture capital firms. She is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, a global entrepreneurship organization, and serves on the advisory board for The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Astia (previously known as The Women’s Technology Cluster). She is also a longtime supporter of the American India Foundation.  

When not working, Sunita enjoys spending time hiking and exploring the Bay Area, traveling abroad and spending time with her husband and two sons.

Charlie is a director in Silicon Valley Bank’s Corporate Relationship Management Group, focused on supporting our Frontier division and our Energy and Resource Innovation division. In this role, he is responsible for engaging with innovation groups at some of the world’s largest companies in the energy, automotive and industrial sectors, driving investment and partnership opportunities with SVB’s client base.

Prior to his current role in San Francisco, Charlie spent seven years as part of SVB’s London-based EMEA branch, working in our Early-Stage Banking and Venture and Growth Lending teams, supporting VC-backed clients in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Charlie played a key role in SVB’s expansion into EMEA and is well-experienced in the connections and value that SVB delivers through an increasingly international innovation economy network.

Charlie graduated with honors from the University of Nottingham with a bachelor’s degree in business management.