Smart Venture Media Leadership Summit 2026

8:30 – 9:00 AM — Registration & Breakfast

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9:00 AM — Welcome & Opening Remarks

Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

MC: Anarghya Vardhana, Venture Partner, Maveron

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9:05 AM — Partner Keynote: SVB

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9:10 AM — Partner Keynote: Sequoia 

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9:15 – 10:05 AM — Panel: The New Rules of Fundraising: What VCs Actually Fund in 2026

Kenan Saleh, Investment Partner, a16z

Lauri Moore, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners

Aaron Jacobson, Partner, NEA 

Andrew Brackin, Partner, Gradient Ventures

Brent Murri, Partner, M13

David Kwon, Partner, Abstract

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

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10:05 – 10:50 AM — Fireside Chat: Zero to Category: How to Build a Defining AI Company from Scratch

Justin Osofsky, VP of Meta, former COO of Instagram

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

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10:50 – 11:20 AM — Panel: Cracking the Enterprise: Selling AI to CIOs and CISOs

Patti Degnan, Partner, a16z

Kevin Smith, CIO, Lyft

Deepa Gopinath, CIO, MongoDB

Parul Saini, former Head of IT, Uber

Moderator: Yousuf Khan, Venture Partner, Ridge Ventures

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11:20 – 11:45 AM — The Agentic Bet: Where Smart Money Is Going in AI Agents

Alan Du, Partner, M12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund) 

Madison Faulkner, Partner, NEA 

Joseph Ros, Partner, Entrepreneur First 

Miloni Madan Presler, Partner, IVP 

Yazan El-Baba, Partner, Emergence Capital 

Daniel Suh, General Partner, Gold House Ventures

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

11:45 AM – 11:55 PM — Demo:  

Div Garg, Founder & CEO, AGI, Inc.

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11:55 AM – 1:00 PM — Lunch & Networking

MC: Shomik Ghosh,  Partner, Sierra Ventures

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1:00 – 2:00 PM — TThe Billion-Dollar Blueprint: Patterns Behind the Fastest-Scaling AI Companies

Alexander Mashrabov, CEO & Co-founder, Higgsfield AI

Jake Stauch, Co-founder & CEO, Serval

Samir Menon, Founder & CEO, Dexterity Inc.

Dan O'Connell, CEO, Front

Matan Grinberg, Co-founder & CEO, Factory

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

 

2:00 – 2:45 PM — Fireside Chat: Distribution is the Product: GTM Lessons from Founders Who've Done It

Marc Boroditsky, CRO, Nebius

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

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2:45 – 3:15 PM — Panel: AI GTM Trends: What's Working Right Now and What's Next

Dan Tobin, VP, Databricks

Lauren Schwartz, Head of Strategic Sales, Anthropic

Darren Moffett, VP, LangChain

Moderator: Jules Gsell, Strategic Advisor, IVP; former VP of Databricks

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3:25 – 3:55 PM — Panel: Scaling the Machine: GTM Infrastructure, 

Hiring & Ops for AI Companies at Growth Stage

Anand Chandrasekaran, Managing Partner, Celesta Capital

Caroline Duffy, Partner, Cowboy Ventures

Elizabeth Weil, Managing Director, Scribble Ventures

Namrata Ram, VP, Together AI

Mark Goldberger, VP, Metaview, former Head of Enterprise Sales, Ramp

Ashish Uchil, Global BD & Partnerships, ElevenLabs, former VP of Brex

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

 

4:00 – 4:50 PM — Panel: From Adoption to Expansion: How Product and Customer Success Drive AI Revenue

Olivia Nottebohm, COO, Box

Anupam Singh, VP of Engineering, Growth, Roblox

Scott Holden, CMO, Vanta

Rashida Hodge, CVP,  Microsoft

Raghavan Anand, CPO, Snorkel AI

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

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4:55 – 5:15 PM — Fireside chat: Own the Layer, Own the Market: AI Infrastructure as a GTM Strategy

Chase Lochmiller, CEO, Crusoe

Moderator: Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

 

5:15 – 5:20 PM — Closing Remarks

Grace Gong, Founder & CEO, Smart Venture Media

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6:00 PM — Cocktail Reception & Speaker Dinner

(Invite Only)