Board of Directors
Marco Welch | Chairman
Mr. Welch has over 30 years of investment banking experience and was the owner of the commodities firm, BD Alpha3 Corp., where he has served as a consultant for more than the past five years. As a specialist on the Chicago Stock Exchange, he held Series 3, 7 and 63 licenses. In addition, he was CMO for Cabrera Capital, where he marketed a $10 billion bond deal for the State of Illinois. This was the largest bond deal in the state’s history. Previously, he was CMO for Medtech Detect. Mr. Welch was classically trained at The Chicago Conservatory College.
Jay Madan | Director
Mr. Madan is an advisor, board member and operational executive with 30 years combined top-management consulting and C-suite experience in the biotechnology, life sciences and technology industries. Mr. Madan founded Innovate Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2012, where he served as president and chief business officer, took the company public in 2018 (Nasdaq: INNT) and merged it with RDD Pharma in 2020 to create the GI-focused 9 Meters Biopharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: NMTR). At Innovate Biopharmaceuticals, Mr. Madan was also the interim principal accounting officer and principal financial officer from March 2018 through June 2020. Mr. Madan served on the board of directors of Innovate Biopharmaceuticals from January 2018 through April 2020. Since May 2020, Mr. Madan has been an advisor to OakLabs GmbH, a Berlin-based precision medicine company, and the CEO of OakLife Ai Biopharma, Inc, a spin-off from OakLabs. He holds a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Mumbai and pursued an MS in chemical engineering from Washington State University.
Jim Knopf | Director
Mr. Knopf is an entertainment sales executive with over 25 years of experience negotiating and selling large-scale content distribution deals across multiple platforms (TV, digital, mobile and OTT). For the past seven years Mr. Knopf has been the founder/CEO of his own entertainment and media consulting firm called Pinstripe Entertainment Consulting. The firm works with studios, networks and production companies to help monetize their content for broadcast television, cable TV, digital media, mobile and connected television (CTV and OTT). Mr. Knopf and his firm also worked with ESPN to produce the first-ever NCAA College Esports Championship in 2019 that was streamed on ESPN3. Mr. Knopf earned his BS in sports management from the University of Massachusetts and completed two semesters of his MBA at the University of Colorado.
Willy Verhaegen | Director
Mr. Verhaegen started his career as a private banker and then founded his own financial consulting company, W. P. Verhaegen & Associates. The company became one of the leading financial consulting firms in Belgium, specializing in niche financial markets and real estate investments in Spain, Switzerland, the Canary Islands, Canada and the United States. He also founded ROGIB, which was the largest real estate investment trust in Belgium. In his retirement, Mr. Verhaegen continues to serve as a managing director for a privately-owned real estate company, Arboo BV, and consults on an informal basis on current political, economic and financial trends with long-time contacts in his business network. He earned a degree in finance and economics from the University of Antwerp.
Alexander Alexandrov | Director
Mr. Alexandrov is a Los-Angeles based director and cinematographer with a global clientele, including Lexus, Harley-Davidson, Ford, Land Rover Toyota, DeLorean, Tiffany, Vogue, Nikon, Sony, Nike SB, Columbia, UniQlo, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, Smirnoff, Beats by Dre, Amazon, Mercedes-Benz and many others. He has been self-employed as director and cinematographer since 2008. Several of these clients have focused their campaigns on esports events. Feature films in which Mr. Alexandrov was the director of photography have premiered at TIFF, Tribeca, SXSW and the LA Film Festival. Alexander Alexandrov earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Math and Computer Science Magna Cum Laude in 2003 from Alcorn State University. From 2003 through 2006, he developed a web IT system for Moveable Cubicle, which rented shipping containers and was headquartered in Youngsville, (Raleigh) North Carolina. In November, 2006 Alex founded PeopleJar Inc. PeopleJar Inc. was a start-up software and website development company.