Tara Makhija
General Partner
Tara is a fourth year majoring in Media Arts and Design, Environmental and Urban Studies, and Art History. Before coming to UChicago, she placed as a finalist in many international innovation competitions, where her interest in entrepreneurship and design began. She's passionate about using design and the built environment to help support historically marginalized communities, and is an avid supporter of third spaces.
Haodi Shi
General Partner
Haodi is a fourth year interested in math & social science. He has previous experience founding start-ups, working at university incubators/accelerators as well as running one. He is broadly interested in business innovation and has particular interests in the automotive, renewable energy, and TMT industry. This summer, Haodi will be working in equity research as well as investment banking.
Sara Thomas
President
Sara is a third-year studying Econ and MENG. She joined LTF in Fall of her first year after interning at a fintech startup throughout high school. She is passionate about helping founders and diversifying the undergraduate startup ecosystem. Sara has interned at private and public investment firms, and is interested in early stage tech investing. In her free time, Sara enjoys running and cooking.
Max Gallo
Managing Partner
Max Gallo is a fourth-year student studying Computer Science and Econ. He joined LTF in the fall of his third year. He has experience working as a back-end developer, data engineer, and trading analyst. He is interested in applications of AI for macroeconomic forecasting. In his free time, you can find Max either at the nearest climbing gym, cooking up Pasta alla Vodka, or biking along the lakefront.
Board Alumni
Darius Pool '17 - President
Julia Thomsen '19 - President
Agnay Mohindra '20 - President
Kunal Mahajan '21 - President
David Liang '22 - President
Dante Vaisbort '22 - Managing Partner
Wesley Fang '23 - President
Anke Hao '23 - Managing Partner
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Bess Goodfellow '17
Alex Reitveld '19
Shyamsunder Sriram '20
Shreyash Agarwal '21
Vamshi Eppanapally '21
Lisa Smoluk '21
Jason Sheppard '22
Alex Yan '23
Our general partners have gone on to work full-time at these fantastic companies and more:
Sean Qin
General Partner
Sean is a second-year student studying Business Economics and Astrophysics. Prior to joining LTF, he had previous experience working at virtual reality startup and non-operating private foundation. He also worked as a RA to Prof. Michael Kremer this summer. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball and golf.
Grace Li
General Partner
Grace is a second-year studying Economics and Architecture. Prior to joining LTF in the fall of her freshman year, she worked for a TMT-focused venture capital firm, the Beijing Financial Bureau, an architecture firm, and a Metaverse entertainment provider startup. She is passionate about integrating the empathetic sensitivity of design with the tangible effectiveness of technology to resolve potential issues that may arise in our tech-centric world.
Michael Yao
General Partner
Michael is a third-year studying Econ and Data Science. He joined LTF in the fall of his second year after interning at two startups and participating in the Polsky Summer accelerator. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build and scale their ideas, especially first-time founders at UChicago. Last summer he worked in tech private equity. In his free time, Michael enjoys playing poker and listening to podcasts.
