Mark DeSantis

Mark DeSantis was most recently CEO of Bloomfield (acquired by Kubota Corporation), a company using AI to help specialty crop growers across the United States, Europe, Africa, and South America. He was previously cofounder and CEO of RoadBotics (acquired by Michelin), which used AI to assess roadway infrastructure across seven countries. Prior to Roadbotics, he was cofounder of kWantix (acquired by Moody Aldrich Partners), a quant energy hedge fund, and cofounder and CEO of kWantera, an energy trading company, both of which used deep learning technology. He also previously served as CEO of Think Through Learning (acquired by Imagine Learning), an online tutoring company, and U.S. managing director of ANGLE Technology, PLC, a U.K.-based venture capital firm and consultancy.

Earlier in his career, DeSantis was director of government relations for Texas Instruments and held policy positions as a senior policy analyst in The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Administration of George H. W. Bush. He was also staff assistant to the late U.S. Senator John Heinz and a management consultant with Booz Allen.

DeSantis is a senior adviser to MIR Ventures in Palo Alto, L.E.K. Consulting in London, and Cascadia Capital in Seattle. He is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds an M.S. in Technology Management from The American University, a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a Doctorate in Business Administration from the Fox School of Business at Temple University. He also completed the AI Academy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.