Ellen Levy Keynote Speaker

The “Most Connected Woman in Silicon Valley”
Managing Director, Silicon Valley Connect
Senior Advisor to the President, Arizona State University

Ellen Levy's Biography

Ellen Levy is Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect, working with organizations and entrepreneurs on opportunities for “networked innovation”. She also spends much of her time actively managing a portfolio of 50+ startups either as an angel investor or advisory board member. Additionally, she is a member of the Board of Directors for learning technology company Instructure (NYSE: INST), commercial real estate finance company Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD), and social network for military and veterans company Rallypoint. She serves as a Senior Advisor to the President of Arizona State University, repeatedly named the “most innovative” US university by US News & World Report.

Ellen spent the better part of a decade working with LinkedIn, including having served as Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, head of Corporate & Business Development and member of the Executive Team, and her original role as Advisory Board member when the company was first founded. Prior to LinkedIn, Ellen spent two years running a groundbreaking program at Stanford University, facilitating collaboration between industry partners, Silicon Valley, and the University research community by championing questions having to do with people, technology & innovation.

Over her career, Ellen has held formal roles in venture capital (Softbank Venture Capital; NeoCarta Ventures; Draper Fisher Jurvetson), startups (WhoWhere, sold to Lycos; Softbook Press, sold to Gemstar; LinkedIn, LNKD), technology think tanks (Interval Research), large corporations (Apple Computer, AAPL; PriceWaterhouse Coopers), and universities (Harvard University; Stanford University).

Referred to as the “Most Connected Woman in Silicon Valley,” Ellen now focuses a good deal of her time on topics generally associated with dynamic, rapidly-growing startups; on all aspects of the “Future of Work” (automation, AI, job displacement, skills training, and education), on various aspects of social networks within “the enterprise”; and on what it takes to build, foster and leverage innovation ecosystems and supporting organizational models.

She has a BA from the University of Michigan, and MA/PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford University.