As Managing Director of Austral Capital, Hiroshi Wald leads US operations for an international venture capital fund, focused on identifying and developing successful entrepreneurs in high growth industries in the US and in Latin America. Founded in 2008, Austral has offices in Santiago, Chile and Palo Alto, California and currently has IT, life sciences, energy and sustainability companies in its portfolio.Prior to joining Austral, he was Principal at TWG, a consultancy focused on technology development, management strategy and customer insights, analysis and intelligence. His diverse background includes Managing Director at Competitive Insights, a business intelligence firm focused on natural language processing and semantic analysis of web content; product development executive at Knowledge Networks where he built and managed teams in India; CEO and Founder of a wireless startup, Zingdata, which was acquired by Knowledge Networks; directing market intelligence at Hill and Knowlton, one of the world’s largest public affairs and relations firms; selection as a Coro Fellow in New York City and serving as Staff Assistant in The White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.Hiroshi also has served on the Executive Board of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, which hosts the largest ongoing gathering of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and thought leaders at monthly events at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.Hiroshi is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles and is game for any gastronomic adventure, anytime.Specialties: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, Innovation, Natural Language Processing, Semantic Analysis, Product Design and Management, International Business and Technology, University Technology Transfer, Social Media, Community Management