Merrill Insight™ Video - Hot or Hype? Trends in Technology: Webinar Playback

Is the autonomous car boom overrated? What do female entrepreneurs and ed:tech have in common? How do different investor types approach tech valuation? And what do new CFIUS regulations have to do with it all?

These are some of the questions we tackled in our October 4 Merrill Insight Video Hot or Hype? Trends in Technology.

Missed it the first time around? Digest, share and engage in the conversation on your own time.

Our Panelists

Jim Ackerman - Vice President of Corporate Development, Flex Ltd - With a background in corporate finance, Jim has 20 years in Corporate Development roles for Tier 1 supply chain services companies leading projects across most all continents outside of Antarctica.  From the days of paper binders in windowless conference rooms to the digital tools and technology which enable today’s expanded deal volume, he has a great appreciation for the revolution that technology has brought to his role.  Jim is currently Vice President of Corporate Development for Flex Ltd, a $25B global provider of innovative design, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics services to companies of all sizes in multiple industries and end-markets.

Shruti Gandhi - Co-Founder, Array Ventures - Shruti is founder and managing partner of Array Ventures. Array invests in enterprise deep tech early stage companies. Shruti spent her early career as a developer on mainframe security, collaboration tools, and data analytics. Post engineering, she was investing in early stage companies at True Ventures and Samsung's venture fund. She has an MBA from University of Chicago and MS from Columbia University.

Ivan Schlager - Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; head of national security practice, CFIUS & communications - Ivan A. Schlager is head of the firm’s National Security practice. He represents a diverse group of clients ranging from defense companies, major telecommunications providers and media and technology companies to private equity firms and companies in the financial services, manufacturing and healthcare industries.

Rahul Dutta - Managing Director, Evercore Corporate Advisory, Technology - Rahul has over a dozen years of technology investment banking and investing experience. Rahul joined Evercore in 2010 in New York, where he focused on M&A Advisory across industries, and made the move to Evercore’s Bay Area Technology team in 2015. Some of Rahul’s representative transactions include Ericsson’s $1.2bn acquisition of Telcordia, Singtel’s $900mm acquisition of Trustwave, Brocade’s $1.4bn acquisition of Ruckus Wireless and Blackrock’s acquisition of Claymore Investments. Prior to joining Evercore, Rahul began his career in finance in Technology M&A with UBS Investment Bank and was also a financial technology investor at FTV Capital. Rahul has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Southern California.