ABOUT ROBO GLOBAL

Travis is CEO and Partner of ROBO Global. A veteran of the finance and wealth management industry, Travis is responsible for managing daily operations and executing the firm’s business strategy. Prior to joining ROBO Global in March 2014, Travis served as managing director at Smith Group Asset Management in Dallas, where he created and led the firm’s Private Client Group. Before joining Smith Group, Travis served as Chief Operating Officer and Director of Business Development at Dallas-based hedge-fund Discovery Management. Earlier in his career, Travis was the Director of Investor Relations at Triton Energy and worked as an analyst at Bank of America.

Bill Studebaker joined the ROBO Global team in 2015 after more than 20 years in capital markets and investment management. For more than a decade, he served as a portfolio manager at Apex Capital where he covered industrials and the economies of supply chain management. Earlier in his career, he held a number of positions at Merrill Lynch, including as a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and as a director in institutional equity sales, and he was an analyst in the structured finance group of Cargill.

Bill received his BA in Political Science and International Relations (double major) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jeremie Capron joined ROBO Global in 2017 with more than ten years of experience as an equity research analyst in Asia, Europe, and the United States, with a focus on industrial technology.

Most recently, Jeremie led CLSA’s industrial research out of New York. For the prior seven years he served as a Senior Research Analyst with CLSA in Singapore and Japan, receiving a No.1 stock picker award from Nikkei/Starmine and ranking No.1 for Japan Materials Research in Asiamoney Brokers’ Poll for three consecutive years. Earlier in his career, he was a project manager with Veolia Environment in Europe and Asia.

Jeremie is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder, holds a Master’s Degree in Science and Executive Engineering from the École des Mines de Paris, and holds FINRA series 7, 63, 87 licenses. He is fluent in French and Japanese.

Lauren Hein brings over a decade of ETF distribution experience to her role as ROBO Global’s Head of Advisor Relations.

She started her career at First Trust Portfolios before becoming a Regional Vice President with State Street Global Advisors, where she developed extensive experience in multi-channel sales, portfolio construction, and relationship management. She later moved to Dallas as a Regional Director with Global X ETFs, establishing a deeper understanding of disruptive technology and thematics.

Lauren graduated from Wheaton College where she received her BA in Economics. She is Series 7 and 63 licensed.

Clay joined the ROBO Global team at the firm's founding in 2013 and currently serves as Chief Financial Officer. Outside of his financial responsibilities, Clay assists with developing and executing on strategic initiatives at the firm. He has a decade of experience in financial services at ROBO Global and as a financial analyst at Bamford Partners.

Clay holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors in business from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.

Erin was recruited to the ROBO Global team after adding impressive value as a consultant with iris Concise in Atlanta. In her role as Director at Concise, she partnered with clients to drive the commercial performance of leading brands such as IHG, Shell, and Zaxby’s, as well as ROBO Global. Prior to joining Concise, she worked in NYC developing integrated marketing campaigns designed to drive awareness, brand love, and customer retention in the retail space.

Erin holds an MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and a BS in Business and International Studies from Wake Forest University.

Brad joined Robo Global in March of 2018 as Chief Technology Officer and Director of Operations. Prior to joining Robo, he spent the previous 16 years at Smith Group Asset Management, a Dallas-based investment advisor, where he was the head of the firm’s technology, software development, and trading operations and a member of the quantitative research team.

Brad earned a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Arlington, graduating Summa Cum Laude.  He was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2004 and is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society of Dallas-Ft. Worth.

Lisa Chai brings more than 17 years of experience investing in disruptive technology companies to her role as ROBO Global’s Senior Research Analyst.

Prior to joining ROBO Global, Lisa was a corporate strategy consultant at Bluemont Partners where she worked with emerging growth technology companies. She also spent 10 years at Palisade Capital Management and AG Asset Management (a subsidiary of Angelo, Gordon & Co.) where she was a sector head of technology investing in the semiconductor, software, and Internet industries. Earlier in her career, she served as a Research Analyst/Portfolio Manager at Tavistock Group and Ridgecrest Partners, a hedge fund focused on the technology and telecom sectors.

Lisa is currently a member of the Empire Angels, a professional angel group investing in early stage technology ventures with a strong focus in Internet, fintech, and enterprise software. She is also a Strategic Advisor to MState.io, a Blockchain growth lab backed by Comcast Ventures, IBM and Boldstart Ventures, focused on scaling the most promising blockchain companies globally for the Enterprise sector. She graduated from Boston University Questrom School of Business.

Shachi Merchant brings his expertise in ETF sales, risk management, and financial planning to his role as ROBO Global’s Vice President, Index Specialist. He began his career at Charles Schwab & Co. working with high net-worth clients as an Investment Specialist where he helped grow assets from $3.65 trillion to over $6 trillion.

Shachi currently holds a Series 7 & 63 and attended Texas State University’s McCoy Business School where he received his Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Finance. In his free time, Shachi enjoys hiking, swimming, and playing the piano.

Dr. Henrik I. Christensen is the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems and a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego. He is also the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute. 

He is an academic doing research on robotics and artificial intelligence, the main editor of the US National Robotics Roadmap, and an entrepreneur. He has co-founded multiple companies including Robust.AI, Christensen Consulting Group, AeroScan, and Intelligent Machines. He is also engaged in investments in publicly traded companies and start-ups through companies such as ROBO Global (co-founder) and Spring Mountain Capital (advisor). 

Dr. Christensen does research on robotics and AI, with an emphasis on a systems view to problems. The research has been published in 350+ contributions across AI, Computer Vision, and Robotics. The research has been adopted by companies such as Electrolux, ABB, KUKA, Weda, BMW, Boeing, iRobot, PerMobil, General Motors, and more. He serves as a consultant to agencies and companies across four continents. 

Raffaello D’Andrea is the founder and CEO of Verity, the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone company, and a professor at ETH Zürich.

In 2003, he co-founded Kiva Systems, which was later acquired by Amazon and rebranded as Amazon Robotics. During his time as a professor at Cornell University, he co-founded the systems engineering program and led the Cornell Robot Soccer team to four world championships.

Raffaello’s work as a new media artist has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and is part of the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and France’s FRAC Centre. With his team at Verity, he created the drone design and choreography for Cirque Du Soleil’s Paramour on Broadway, Metallica’s WorldWired Tour, and Céline Dion’s Courage Tour.

In 2020, he was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His TED and research videos, with tens of millions of views, offer an inspiring view into the world of engineering, robotics, and computer science.

Ken Goldberg is a Professor and Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department at UC Berkeley, and he has secondary appointments in EECS, Art Practice at the School of Information, and in Radiation Oncology at the UCSF Medical School. He is also the Director of the CITRIS “People and Robots” Initiative and the UC Berkeley AUTOLAB where he and his students pursue research in geometric algorithms and machine learning for robotics and automation in surgery, manufacturing, and other applications.

Ken has more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and 8 US Patents. He co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Ken was awarded the NSF PECASE (Presidential Faculty Fellowship) from President Bill Clinton in 1995, elected IEEE Fellow in 2005, and selected by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for the George Saridis Leadership Award in 2016. Ken is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

As president of SRI International, Manish Kothari, Ph.D., jointly develops SRI strategy with the CEO and oversees SRI Ventures, Global Partnerships, Marketing and Communications, and SRI’s Japan office.

SRI has been at the forefront of many innovations over the last 75 years, including the mouse, Siri, and the world’s most successful robotics company – Intuitive Surgical. Over the last decade, several SRI ventures have been acquired by the likes of Google, Apple, AT&T and many others.

Prior to his role at SRI, Dr. Kothari co-founded and ran multiple startups, largely at the intersection of AI, NLP and advanced image processing as applied to healthcare. He holds multiple patents and is the author or co-author of several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. 

Kothari received his M.S. degree and Ph.D. in biomechanical engineering from Cornell University, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. His Bachelor of Technology degree in aerospace engineering (summa cum laude) is from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Wyatt Newman is a leading researcher in the areas of mechatronics, robotics and computational intelligence, in which he has 12 patents and over 130 technical publications. After earning degrees from Harvard College, MIT and Columbia University, he was named an NSF Young Investigator in robotics, and subsequently was named a Herbold Fellow, a Tau Beta Pi “distinguished engineer,” a Woody-Flowers FIRST-robotics mentor awardee, and a CWRU awardee for teaching and for leadership. In 2007, he led “Team Case” in the DARPA Urban Challenge, involving autonomous vehicles operating among live and robotic traffic.

In addition to visiting appointments at Sandia Labs, NASA, and Princeton, Wyatt has held international appointments at Philips (Eindhoven, The Netherlands), as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at U. Edinburgh, and The Hung Hing Ying Distinguished Visiting Professor at U. of Hong Kong. Prof.  He also led HKU’s team in the DARPA Robotics Challenge, involving humanoid robots for disaster response.

Wyatt is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

Illah R. Nourbakhsh is Professor of Robotics, Director of the Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) lab and Associate Director for robotics faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. He has served as Robotics Group lead at NASA/Ames Research Center, and he was a founder and chief scientist of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc. His current research projects explore community-based robotics, including educational and social robotics and ways to use robotic technology to empower individuals and communities.

The CEO and Chairman of Airviz, Inc., Illah is a World Economic Forum Global Steward, a member of the Global Future Council on the Future of AI and Robotics, and a member of the IEEE Global Initiative for the Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems. He also serves on the Global Innovation Council of the Varkey Foundation and is a Senior Advisor to The Future Society, Harvard Kennedy School.  Illah earned his BS, MA, and PhD degrees in computer science from Stanford University and is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

Daniela Rus is the Director of CSAIL at MIT. She serves as the Director of the Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center and is a member of the science advisory board of the Toyota Research Institute.

Rus’s research interests are in robotics and artificial intelligence. The recipient of the 2017 Engelberger Robotics Award from the Robotics Industries Association, she is also a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Daniela earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University and is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Duke University and studying Mandarin at Nanjing University, Louis joined the French Army where he served as a second lieutenant in a mountain infantry battalion. After leaving the army, he worked as a financial analyst with Paribas in Paris and Hong Kong. He then launched Gavekal Research with Charles Gave and Anatole Kaletsky in London in 1999.

Since 2002,  Louis-Vincent has been based in Hong Kong where he oversees Gavekal’s money management business and contributes to the firm’s research. He has written seven books. The latest, Avoiding the Punch, was published in August 2021. He is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

Morten Paulsen is the Head of Research and a Managing Director at CLSA Japan. He has covered the Japanese robotics and machinery industry as a Tokyo-based equity analyst since 1999. Morten was among the first financial analysts to highlight the Asian Automation trend as an underlying driver for the sector over a decade ago, and he has built strong relationships with automation equipment suppliers and system integrators across Asia.

Morten joined CLSA Japan from WestLB Securities Pacific in 2003, and he has received numerous rewards for his research. He was ranked number-one in his field by AsiaMoney every year from 2007 to 2013 (the segment was discontinued in 2014), and he was ranked by Starmine as one of Japan’s top 10 stock pickers in 2013. Morten is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.