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Thistle makes eating nutritious, organic, and local foods incredibly convenient and accessible by delivering prepared, plant-forward meals on a subscription basis. [Founded]
Alap Shah is an investor and entrepreneur who relishes combining the two roles. He was previously the CEO and is now the Chairman of Sentieo, a financial data platform he co-founded for hedge funds, mutual funds, investment banks, corporates and active individual investors. With fifteen years of professional investment experience, his expertise spans large global equity portfolios at two of the world’s largest and most successful hedge funds (Viking Global and Citadel) to LBO and growth equity investments (Castanea Partners) to early-stage investments (White Ops, Wiser, Earnest Research, Powerlytics). In addition to Sentieo, he is also a co-founder and investor in Thistle, a health foods subscription service. Alap graduated from Harvard University with an AB in Economics with honors.
Johnny Hwin is an artist and entrepreneur previously featured in a New Yorker article on San Francisco’s creative culture. He is a co-founder at Thistle and the songwriter/producer of Cathedrals, an indie-electronic pop duo The New York Times describes as “R&B with 1980s rock swagger.” He has a BA in social psychology and an MS in technology entrepreneurship from Stanford University, where he launched his first company from the Stanford Facebook App Class. By night, he runs the San Francisco-based creative collective The SUB, whose latest art show “The 9 Cans of La Croix” garnered coverage from The Washington Post, Vice, and Elite Daily. He has advised and consulted a number of technology companies including Asana, DreamWorks, Lever, and Patreon.
Arib is an investor and a builder. He started his career at Citi as a hybrid quant trader, managing both a discretionary prop trading book and a systematically traded inventory book. After using an early beta version of Sentieo, he became intrigued by Alap's vision for a data-driven fundamental investment approach. He joined Sentieo as its first US hire, ultimately rising to VP of Product. In that role, he built Sentieo's Product team and NY office, and architected Sentieo's data analytics and alternative data products. He is now focused on leveraging his data product experience to help drive Studio's public and private investment processes. Arib graduated from Cornell University with a BS and MEng in Operations Research Engineering.
Sean Warneke brings a wide array of experience spanning Business Development, Corporate Finance, Strategy, and Product. As an Investment Analyst at Studio Management, he focuses primarily on public equity investments in the consumer and technology sectors. Prior to Studio, Sean held positions in both public and private companies, including Raytheon Technologies where he participated in the Financial Leadership Development Program, and on the Product Specialist team at Sentieo, where he still serves as an Advisor. Sean has a BS in Finance from Bentley University.
Ari Ameri is an investor primarily focused on venture investments, working to identify and support extraordinary products and entrepreneurs. Prior to Studio, he had a wide range of investment experience across the technology sector, including early and growth stage venture capital (Blue Cloud Ventures) and public market investing and research at a hedge fund (Light Street Capital). His expertise spans beyond investing and he has consulted for a range of startups on strategy, growth, and M&A. Outside of work, he is an avid musician with over ten years of experience as an improv jazz saxophonist. Ari graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Business Administration.
Nina joined the Studio team in 2020 as the chief of staff and analyst. Prior to that, she worked at Tulco and was the editor of two best-selling economics textbooks. Nina graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in economics and mathematics, where she was the recipient of the Seymour Harris Prize for the best thesis in the department.
Outside of work, she serves on the Women & Girls of Color Fund Advisory Council where she gets to apply her investing experience to philanthropic investments. Nina enjoys skiing and hiking in her free time.