Monica Khan: DMEC Co-President

Born and raised in Edison, New Jersey, Monica attended Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City where she earned a BA in Economics.  After graduation, she joined JPMorgan Chase, where she spent the majority of her time working in the Strategy, Planning, and Analysis Group of the Investment Bank.  However, the experience left her incomplete – she craved to work for a more creative, consumer-focused company where her work had a greater impact on the mass market.  In order to make a successful transition out of Wall Street, Monica made the life-changing decision to move across the country and attend business school on the West Coast.  After she earns her MBA from Haas, Monica is eager to leverage her passion for entertainment and technology, her business skills, and her professional experience into building a career in which she can help companies develop new technologies and deliver new products to satiate the rapidly evolving technology and content needs of a wide range of consumer demographics.

Max Wesman: DMEC Co-President

Max is a San Francisco native who grew up during the Dot-Com boom. After receiving undergraduate degrees in Business and Hispanic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, Max spent three years working for Deloitte Consulting in New York. At Deloitte Max helped Fortune 500 companies in the Technology, Media, Telecom, and Financial Services industries develop corporate strategies, refine processes, reduce costs, and optimize workplace design. At Haas, Max is focused on technology innovation, marketing, and entrepreneurship. His hobbies include cooking, playing golf and tennis, and singing off-key karaoke.

Harvey Villarica: >Play Co-chair

Harvey Villarica received his undergrad degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. He spent four years working at a financial advisory firm in Los Angeles that served companies in the media and entertainment industry.  He came to Haas to make a career switch into the technology and digital media industry.  At Haas, aside from his role at DMEC as Co-Chair of the >play conference, he is also a Principal of the Haas Socially Responsible Investing Fund, VP of Technology for the Global Social Venture Competition, VP of Finance of Q@Haas and a student interviewer.  He is also involved with an independent study about the monetization of online games and an active member of the Haas Technology Club.  In his spare time, he enjoys watching TV and playing board games with his partner Dylan.

Nick Jablonski: >Play Co-chair

Nick Jablonski is a first year MBA student at the Haas School of Business and completed his undergraduate work with a dual major in marketing and television at Syracuse University.  Prior to his time at Haas, Nick worked for global advertising agency MediaVest Worldwide in New York on such clients as Activision, Sharp Electronics, Paramount Pictures, and Capital One.  He was responsible for over $50 million in yearly advertising budgets, which he negotiated, managed, and executed with a range of media partners.  In school, he is co-chair of the >play Digital Media Conference, President of Q@Haas, and the VP of University Relations for the Haas Marketing Club.  His post-MBA plans include a marketing strategy role for a technology or media focused company.

Elad Ganot : Co-VP of Academics

Elad started his professional career as a lawyer, but quickly realized that his true passion lies all around technology. Elad spent the last seven years working for SAP in various roles – from QA through Release Management to managing a Solution Office group. In addition to his corporate experience, on 2001 he founded - together with his wife - a website called Avatiach.com which is Israel’s index of misheard song lyrics. The site is rapidly approaching 3,000,000 visitors and was named Israel’s best humor site for 2003. Elad also enjoys blogging (http://westcoaststory.avatiach.com), playing the guitar (both his 77’ Fender Strat and on the Xbox) and installing (doubtfully useful) new stuff on his laptop.

Amir Pelleg : Co-VP of Academics

Prior to attending Haas, Amir worked as a software director for a government agency in Israel, where he focused on strategic R&D and project management. Amir holds a Master of Science degree in computer science. Following graduation from Haas, Amir plans to pursue marketing and general management roles in the technology industry. Amir traveled to over 15 developing countries and also enjoys Kite-surfing and photography.

Bernie Lin : VP of Admissions

Bernie received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, focusing on wireless communications theory and Chinese language and dialects. He worked at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company for 7 years, working on various projects ranging from military communication satellites, to internship programs, to missile defense systems. As a Haas student, he is interested in the digital media/entertainment, internet technology, and entrepreneurship space. He is active in the Berkeley Business Plan Competition, the MBAA as VP of Admissions, and is one of the Haas Student Ambassadors. In his leisure time (if he can find any), he enjoys tennis, squash, snowboarding, playing games, movies, photography, traveling, and the violin.

Pejman Pour-Moezzi : VP of Alumni & VP of Social

Pejman is a California native, growing up in sunny Orange County. After completing his BA in Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley, where he learned how to read minds and create artificial life, he went on to work at Deloitte Consulting in the Technology Integration group. As an MBA student at Haas, Pejman is focused on entrepreneurship, design, and product marketing. Outside of Haas, Pejman enjoys travel, cooking up soups, and reading/sharing tech gossip on twitter. @pejmanjohn

Richard Lok : Co-VP of Careers

Richard graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Computer Engineering.  During his undergraduate career he held internship positions with internet startups (The DocSpace Company, Critical Path), graphics hardware manufacturers (ATI Technologies), and digital communications pioneers (RIM, Cisco).  Richard spent four years working at Deloitte Consulting in their Technology group but his interests in digital innovation and entrepreneurship brought him to Haas and the Bay Area.  In his spare time, Richard enjoys traveling the world in search of the next great meal.

Brian Ellis : Co-VP of Careers

After graduating from Santa Clara University in 2003 with a BSEE, Brian spent 5 years working in Silicon Valley at Cypress Semiconductor in both business development and product management roles. During his time at Cypress, Brian helped pioneer a successful launch of touchscreen controllers (dubbed “TrueTouch”) now used in many consumer electronics today. After working in the B2B space for years, Brian came to Haas with a desire to work on consumer products & applications. While at Haas, Brian has taken leadership roles within DMEC, Challenge for Charity (C4C) and the Beer Club. In his spare time, Brian enjoys working out, watching college football and crafting his own home brews.

David Martin : VP of Finance

David spent five years working on digital media software in product management and marketing roles. Soon after college, he skipped across the Pacific, set up camp in Taipei, and enrolled in Chinese language school. He has lived on three continents and will always find time for digital photography, snowboarding, and Chinese karaoke.

Jeff Gordon : VP of Marketing

Jeff Gordon hails from New York City, where he spent seven years working in technology marketing communications with companies such as Microsoft, Citrix, and Palm. He is Vice President of Marketing for DMEC, as well as Vice President of Technology for the Haas MBA Association student government. His focus in school is Management of Technology, while interests outside of classes include music, blogging, and college football.

Mohsin Afzal : VP of Technology

Mohsin Ali Afzal hails from a small village in Pakistan, Bikhari Khurd. He grew up in Rawalpindi and attended the National University of Sciences and Technology where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in software engineering. A passionate videogame and animation enthusiast, Mohsin was on the founding team of Pakistan’s first games development and CGI studio, Trango Interactive. As the Technical Director he played an integral part in the development of the startup and led it to the prestigious Red Herring award as one of Asia’s top 100 private tech companies. Some of the projects he worked on include Tomb Raider: Legend, SEGA: After Burner, Death Junior, Toyota Scion: Little Deviants and Shera Jutt. He also holds a diploma in Advanced Character Animation from Animation Mentor and created a short animation film titled “Hoop Dreams”. He is a diehard Arsenal FC fan and most of his free time is spent watching Japanese anime, playing various sports and watching the Simpsons and Seinfeld reruns.