Startup Midwest Schedule

Schedule for 2023 Startup Midwest:

Hosted by:

Shereen Agrawal
Executive Director of the Center for Software Innovation, The Ohio State University

Shereen Agrawal is the inaugural executive director of the Center for Software Innovation. She is a seasoned technology leader with experience ranging from early-stage startups to large, publicly traded companies. Throughout her career, she has gained experience launching new technology, leading go-to-market initiatives, forging networks across global technology communities and developing high-performing teams.

Most recently, Shereen served as co-founder of a central Ohio-based consulting firm focused on product and go-to-market strategies. Previously, she served as vice president of business development at Columbus-based Root Insurance, where she developed innovative partnerships and products supporting the company’s growth through to IPO. At Twitter and Cloudera, she supported the growth of an ecosystem of software partnerships to develop new customer experiences and grow revenue. As part of the finance team at Intel, Shereen focused on developing a competitive advantage in new mobile technology.

Shereen earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. She has advised student ventures as an executive in residence at The Ohio State University.

Carl Eschenbach
Co-CEO at Workday

Carl Eschenbach serves as co-CEO at Workday and has been a member of the company’s board of directors since 2018. Prior to Workday, Eschenbach spent 14 years at VMware, Inc.—a global virtual infrastructure software provider—in various roles including president, chief operating officer, acting chief financial officer, and executive vice president of worldwide field operations. He then served as general partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in 2016 and continues to stay involved with Sequoia.

Eschenbach held various sales management positions with Inktomi, 3Com Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Inc., and EMC. Throughout his career, Eschenbach has been an active board member for leading technology companies including Aurora Innovation, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Snowflake, Inc., UiPath, Inc., and Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

Eschenbach received an electronics technician diploma from DeVry University.

Jon Husted 
Lt. Governor of Ohio; Leads the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation

As Ohio’s 66th Lt. Governor, Jon Husted leads with a focus on economic and workforce development and has championed the administration’s efforts to strengthen the economy, use technology to transform the way government operates, and build opportunity for every Ohioan. Lt. Governor Husted oversees the Ohio Common Sense Initiative (CSI) and serves as the Director of both the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation and InnovateOhio. Of all his responsibilities, Lt. Governor Husted considers his most important role as that of a loving husband to his wife Tina, and father to Alex, Katie, and Kylie.

Andrew J. (A.J.) Lang
Chief Technology Officer, CIO for Data & Analytics at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Andrew J. (A.J.) Lang is JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief technology officer (CTO) as well as the chief information officer (CIO) for Data & Analytics. He oversees enabling the top quality engineering and architecture tools and practices required to make JPMorgan Chase a leading technology company and leads the design and development of modern AI/ML and data platforms to solve complex business needs. He is a member of the firm's Global Technology Operating Committee. 

Lang has over 25 years of technology experience and has been responsible for information technology services across all business units, as well as technology strategy and IT transformation initiatives. Before joining JPMorgan Chase, he was global chief information officer and executive vice president at Wolters Kluwer, and CIO and senior vice president of WellPoint, Inc. Lang has also held technology leadership positions at Cargill, Aetna, U.S. Bancorp, Visa International and IBM. 

Throughout his career, Lang has driven technical, cultural and operational transformation and the on-time delivery of mission critical business programs. He has wide-ranging expertise leading enterprise architecture, applications design and development, data center, network, engineering and testing organizations. 

Lang earned his Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University, holds several software patents, and attended post-graduate classes at Stanford University via IBM sponsorship. He currently serves on the board of HiLabs Inc., a healthcare data mining and AI company.

Ratmir Timashev
Software Entrepreneur and Investor; Co-Founder of Veeam Software

Ratmir Timashev is a globally recognized entrepreneur, technologist, and philanthropist. He is the founder of Veeam Software — the global leader in cloud data protection and management software founded and headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. A champion of education and technological innovation in the Midwest, Ratmir and the Timashev Family Foundation are leading supporters of The Ohio State University.

Ratmir’s career as a software entrepreneur began during his time as a graduate student at Ohio State in 1995. Together with his close friend and partner Andrei Baronov, they built their first company, Aelita Software — which developed software management tools for Windows NT administrators — out of Ratmir’s campus apartment, and then sold Aelita to Quest Software in 2004. The duo later founded Veeam Software in Columbus, and Ratmir served as CEO before the company sold to Insight Partners in 2020. Today, Ratmir is building a new data hardware company, Object First.

Ratmir maintains strong ties to The Ohio State University, where he has established several major initiatives and scholarship funds for undergraduate students and scientific research. Through the Timashev Family Foundation, Ratmir and Angela’s $110 million gift in February 2023 launched the Center for Software Innovation and is the largest single gift in university history. This donation came after their 2020 gift to the College of Arts and Sciences, which supported construction of the state-of-the-art Timashev Family Music Building as part of Ohio State’s emerging Arts District. In 2016, Ratmir endowed the Dr. Terry A. Miller Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Chemical Physics, in honor of his mentor and friend. A member of The Ohio State University Foundation Board of Directors, Ratmir and Angela were recognized in April 2022 with the Distinguished Service Award from Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Established in 2017, the Timashev Family Foundation supports communities through education, innovation, the arts, and humanitarian efforts across the United States and globe. The Foundation has closely supported organizations operating on-the-ground in Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion in 2022.

Born into a family of engineers, Ratmir followed his passion for science and earned his first master’s degree in physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He received his Master of Science in Chemical Physics from Ohio State in 1996. He currently lives in Connecticut with his wife Angela and children.