Chris Bartlett is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Head of Verizon Ventures. Prior to joining the team, Chris was Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he led North America media and communications mergers and acquisitions. He has also worked in media and communications M&A at Bear, Stearns & Co., and started his career at Arthur Andersen LLP. Chris holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Texas at Austin.

Colleen Cunniffe is COO of Verizon Ventures, and Sr. VP of Verizon Corporate’s Business Development group. She is responsible for Verizon Ventures’ investment operations, including alignment with internal strategic sponsors and overseeing diligence for new and follow on investments. As a leader in Corporate Development, Colleen also manages the end-to-end integration process for Verizon’s major acquisitions and divestitures.

Prior to her operations leadership at Verizon Ventures, Colleen served as a senior leader in Verizon’s Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis organization and ran the annual budget and 5-year financial plan. Other senior assignments have included CFO for the Enterprise Business Unit, financial planning & analysis for Verizon’s CIO, CMO, and Network leaders, and all financial integration associated with the MCI acquisition. Colleen earned a BA in Business Administration, with a concentration in accounting, from the College of William & Mary, and has her CPA certification.

Jeffrey Black joined Verizon Ventures in 2012. Prior to Verizon Ventures, Jeffrey joined Verizon in 2009 and was involved in numerous M&A and strategic investment transactions. Previously, he worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan, structuring debt, equity, and M&A transactions. Prior to J.P. Morgan, he worked in the corporate finance department at Delta Air Lines. Jeffrey received a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

Michelle McCarthy is a Managing Director at Verizon Ventures in New York.  Michelle's career with Verizon spans more than 20 years. Before joining the Verizon Ventures team in 2012, Michelle led transactions and asset management of a multi-billion dollar portfolio of tax credit investments and, prior to that, held a leadership position on Verizon's corporate strategy team and supported domestic and international M&A transactions. Michelle earned an MBA in finance from Georgetown University and a B.A. in International Studies from American University.

Merav Rotem Naaman is a Managing Director at Verizon Ventures and leads our investment activities in Israel as GM, Israel and Europe.  She brings over 20 years of experience in the tech industry, where she served in both transactional and strategy roles.

Prior to joining, Merav was the Managing Director of Nautilus, Aol’s early stage investment arm in Israel, which she co-founded in 2014. Before joining Aol, Merav was Head of Strategy and Operations at Better Place where she helped shape the company’s strategy and alliances from its earliest days. She started her career as the Head of Regulatory Affairs for Israel’s leading Telco - Cellcom, and also spent several years working from the San Francisco offices of Bain & Co., advising companies on subjects like strategy, business development and M&A.

Merav received an MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a law degree from Tel Aviv University.  She’s based in Tel Aviv.

Kristina Serafim is a Director at Verizon Ventures. Kristina joined Verizon Ventures from Verizon’s Big Data and Artificial Intelligence product team. Prior to Verizon, Kristina was a Director at Intellectual Ventures, where she led investments in machine learning, media, advertising, and gaming technologies. Kristina’s entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding and leading two software companies, from their inception to acquisition. Kristina also spent several years on the strategy and corporate development teams at IBM and at NAGRA Innovations. She received an electrical and mechanical engineering degree from Kettering University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Tammy Mahn is a Managing Director at Verizon Ventures' office in Tel Aviv.  She brings more than 17 years of VC experience to the role. Most recently, Tammy built the investment strategy for Agrination, an Israeli-Asian corporate consortium focusing on game-changing Israeli agriculture and food technology companies. She was the founding Managing Partner of Moonscape Ventures, a $120M corporate investment arm of AGT International, focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and analytics domains.  Prior to launching Moonscape Ventures, Tammy served as a top liaison to institutional investors in Israel as part of Hamilton Lane’s team.  She was an investor at leading Israeli VCs Pitango and Evergreen where she identified and directed investments in technology companies.

Tammy began her career as a management consultant in McKinsey’s London office and was part of the team launching the Israel office where she worked with leading companies. Tammy has a B.Sc in Chemistry from the Tel Aviv University and M.Sc in Chemical Physics (cum laude) from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

Tom joined Verizon Ventures in 2017. He most recently was part of Verizon’s Innovation Program focused on developing partnerships with IoT companies (and took particular interest in working with a cross functional Verizon group on UAS issues and controlled technical trials of UAS on the wireless network).  

Prior to the Verizon Innovation Program, Tom worked for Verizon Enterprise Solutions.  Among his responsibilities; he cultivated interconnection agreements between Verizon, Google and Netflix to better serve FiOS and Wireless customers.  Before joining Verizon, Tom held various sales, operations and business development positions with Xerox, Cobalt Networks, Narus and First American Title.  

Tom holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from National Louis University.

As a member of the venture development team, Marah Dudenhoeffer is responsible for sourcing new innovative solutions for Verizon Ventures, as well as strategic development of the Ventures portfolio. Marah joins the Verizon Ventures team from her role as technical lead for the Verizon Innovation Center in San Francisco, which is focused on fostering innovation in the IoT ecosystem. Prior to joining Verizon, Marah served as Junior Trade Commissioner for the Consulate General of Canada in Silicon Valley, where she was focused on finding venture capital and business development opportunities for Canadian technology companies. Marah has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz - Crown College of Science and Emerging Technology. Marah began working with Silicon Valley start-ups during her junior year at UCSC, and she has a real passion for helping cutting edge technology companies get their products to market.

Leslie Epstein joined Verizon Ventures in 2017 and focuses on portfolio analysis and operations for the venture fund. She has been with Verizon since 2005 and was most recently part of the Wireless Marketing team where she worked on the development of a tech-savvy, millennial targeted wireless sub-brand product. Previously, she was part of the Investor Relations team and before that was an investment analyst at VIMCO managing Verizon’s pension and savings plan fund investments.  Leslie earned an MBA in finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a dual major B.S. degree in Management and EMAC (electronic, media, arts and communications) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

Ajay Patel joined Verizon Ventures in 2018 and brings ten years of financial valuation expertise across telecom, media, and healthcare industries. Prior to joining the team, he was a member of the Verizon M&A team. Ajay came to Verizon from Duff and Phelps, where he was a Vice President in the Valuation practice. He received a B.S. in Finance, cum laude, with minors in Political Science and Planning and Public Policy from Rutgers University.

Terry Evans Jr. joined Verizon Ventures in 2019 with more than eight years of experience in business development, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and divestitures. 

Prior to joining Verizon Ventures, he was a core member of a high-impact corporate development team for the commercial division of United Technologies, where he led all aspects of M&A execution. Prior to United Technologies, he worked in business development at two financial service firms.

Terry holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.S. in Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in Finance from Robert Morris University. He is based in Palo Alto, California.

Corey Gutshall is an accomplished technology and innovation leader with 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry.

Corey joined Verizon Ventures in 2020 from the Verizon Technology Partnerships organization where he engaged innovative companies to build a robust 5G application ecosystem. Before coming to Verizon, Corey held leadership roles in Product Management at Nokia where, over the last three generations of wireless networks, he directed several product portfolios responsible for over $1 billion in annual revenue. Corey will focus on investment in network technology with the end-to-end thinking necessary to capitalize on the increasing interdependence between network and application layers.

Corey holds an MBA in Finance with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in Engineering from Cornell University.