Meet Our Team
Cristina Ramirez
Co-Founder & Creator of the DashStrom Program
Cristina is the Creator of the DashStrom Program. She began her career at Merrill Lynch Latin America and then moved to Silicon Valley at 3Com Latin America. After a stint with 3Com in Chile, Cristina returned to the US and became a preschool teacher when her boys were born becoming obsessed with child development. Yes, she went from Wall Street to Sesame Street. Cristina developed the DashStrom curriculum, is a best-selling author, Ironman triathlete, and National Silver Medalist in snowboarding (just don’t ask how many women in her age group!)
Dr. Ketaki Desai
Co-Founder & CEO
Ketaki is the Chief Executive Officer at DashStrom. She is a 3X founder with wide-ranging experience in operations, technology and teams. She was the VP of Business Development at the Ontario Center of Innovation managing an investment portfolio of over $200M, Head of Strategy for a $1B Life Sciences fund at UPMC and Product Owner for a $1B Common Core-based Education technology platform for the LAUSD. Ketaki has been working with early stage companies for over a decade. She is an avid hiker (Kilimanjaro, O-circuit, TMB) and a black belt in karate.
Lou Biancianello
CTO
Lou is our fractional CTO and works with several startups in the Pittsburgh region. He is a seasoned technology leader including pivotal roles at Google, CGI, Summa Consulting, startups and global consultancies. Lou is a CMU alumnus with expertise in mobile app development, spatial computing and cloud architecture. These experiences equipped him with the skills and vision to make a meaningful impact in the tech world, fueling his commitment to enabling and accelerating early-stage ventures. Lou is a proud hockey coach of 20+ years.
Angelita Capadocia
Junior Developer
Angelita is a software maverick playing a pivotal role in back-end operations and a wide range of development tasks.
Her expertise includes digital marketing, CRM management and software integration. She enjoys traveling and playing online games.
Sean Cunningham
Director of Youth Empowerment
Sean is the Director of Youth Empowerment and also a DashStrom Coach.
He has worked with kids for most of his adult life- between coaching a variety of sports (basketball, soccer, tennis, etc), running summer camps, and volunteering as a ref for children's leagues.
In his free time, he likes to travel and also play volleyball, pickleball, and tennis.
Advisors
Eric Duehring
Branding & Marketing
Ex Global CMO at Blizzard Entertainment with three decades of experience in marketing and global brand management.
Girish Chavan
Product & Technology
CTO, Astrata Healthcare Analytics startup with two decades of experience in engineering and product.
Bhavin Pandya
Consumer Growth
CEO, Games24x7 - India’s largest online gaming platform with 100 million users.
Joe Ferrara
Strategy & Sales
4X CEO, Exited Pittsburgh-based Wombat Technologies, Advisor to startups