Founder & Co-President, Prisma
Victoria Ransom is a Founder & Co-President of Prisma, the world's first connected learning network for K-12 that fully replaces regular school. Victoria has been an entrepreneur since her early twenties and has developed three companies. As Founder & CEO of Wildfire, a social marketing software company, Victoria led the company to profitability in just one year and built the company to tens of thousands of customers, 400 employees, and eight offices worldwide. Clients included 31 of the world’s top 50 brands. Wildfire was acquired by Google in August 2012 for $450M. Victoria joined Google as Director of Product, initially leading Wildfire and later Google Express. Victoria has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor of arts degree from Macalester College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. In 2015, Victoria was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and recognized by KEA in their annual World Class New Zealander awards. She was named #19 on Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 list and was recognized by President Obama in 2013 for her contributions to entrepreneurship. In addition, she was named one of Fortune Magazine’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in 2012, one of the '25 Women to Watch in Tech' for 2011 & 2010, and E&Y Young Entrepreneur of the Year for New Zealand (her home country) in 2011. In her tenure as an entrepreneur, Victoria has been featured in scores of publications including The New York Times’ Corner Office, Bloomberg TV, Entrepreneur Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. In her personal time, she is an avid snowboarder and surfer and a passionate adventure traveler who once spent six weeks living with a remote Amazonian tribe and five months living in a favela in Brazil!
Presence
Founder & Co-President, Prisma
Alain Chuard is a Founder & Co-President of Prisma, the world's first connected learning network for K-12 that fully replaces regular school. He is a Swiss repeat entrepreneur and former professional snowboarder living in Palo Alto, CA. Alain, born in Bern and raised in the Swiss town of Bolligen, comes from an entrepreneurial family. His most successful venture to date was as founder and Chief product officer of Wildfire Interactive, which was acquired by Google in July 2012 for $450M. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Chuard was a professional snowboarder who competed on the World-Cup Pro Tour, was sponsored by Burton, and has been featured in various snowboarding publications. Chuard left Switzerland at the age of 20, after completing his high school matura, to study mathematics and economics at Macalester College. After spending a few years as a Wall Street financial analyst (Salomon Smith Barney), Alain started adventure travel company Access Trips, which he grew while earning an MBA from Stanford and building an online booking and CRM software called IncFuel Corp. Alain then developed Promotion Builder software, which eventually became Wildfire, as an online marketing tool used for promoting Access Trips through social media. Within four years Wildfire grew to a company with 400 employees, and in 2010, Alain sold Access Trips in order to focus on Wildfire. Upon the sale of Wildfire Interactive to Google, Alain lead the Google My Business division. He is also a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
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