Finding proprietary opportunities is one challenge. Recognizing the exceptional ones is another. Howard Morgan has spent more than 40 years doing exactly that, as Founding President of Renaissance Technologies, Co-Founder of First Round Capital and now Chair of B Capital, backing businesses including Uber, Square, Roblox and Notion long before they became global leaders. He joins the summit to share the investment frameworks that help investors identify opportunities others miss.
- →What signals separate exceptional businesses from the hundreds of opportunities investors review each year?
- →How do the world's best investors build conviction when evaluating opportunities before the rest of the market?
- →What common mistakes cause investors to overlook businesses with extraordinary potential?
- →Where does Howard see the next wave of compelling investment opportunities emerging?
Claudine Cohen
Managing Partner
CohnReznick
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Claudine Cohen is Managing Partner of CohnReznick's Value360 Advisory practice, leading multidisciplinary teams that help organizations unlock and maximize value across the business and transaction lifecycle. She oversees integrated capabilities spanning transaction advisory, valuation, and restructuring, delivering practical, results-driven solutions from strategy through execution. She also leads the firm's Independent Sponsor practice, partnering closely with sponsors throughout the deal lifecycle.
Howard Morgan
Co-Founder, Chair & General Partner
B Capital
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Howard Morgan is the Co-Founder, Chair and General Partner of B Capital and one of the pioneers of early-stage investing and the early internet. Howard co-founded First Round Capital, helped found Idealab and served as Founding President of Renaissance Technologies (a quantitative focused hedge fund). Howard's research on user interface technology and the optimization of computer networks was critical to bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in the 1970s and helping corporations and government agencies of all sizes use technology to improve their efficiency. He has deep experience with very large databases and served as the first Editor of the ACM Transactions on Database Systems Journal. Before moving into the business of technology, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University and an Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley. Throughout his career, Howard has mentored a range of talented professionals, from PhD students to early-stage entrepreneurs, taking companies from seed stage through initial public offering. He currently serves as a Director of Idealab and on the nonprofit boards of Cornell University, NY Public Library, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and Math for America. A respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences, he has also served on a number of public company boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc. Howard received a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University and a BS in Physics from City College of the City University of New York. He is based in New York.