Kay Makishi
Location: New York Area
Kay Makishi is an NYC-based entrepreneur, investor, and startup mentor. Currently, Kay serves as chief growth officer at BeyondTrucks (backed by Pear VC, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, Liquid 2, Newton Partners etc). Kay is a mentor at ERA and CELA, NYC-based accelerators/early stage VC.
Kay’s other roles include: Advisor to OIST, Executive Committee Member of Oxford Alumni Association of NY, Ambassador to Invest Tokyo (initiative funded by Japanese government), and founder of IVY+ NYC Tech Salon nonprofit events, a community of 140+ of the top ivy professionals in NYC tech to accelerate good things.
Previously, Kay was funded by the European Union Entrepreneurs Program to scale EU startups to US and Japan, founder of a women’s travelwear brand, and analyst at Digitas, acquired by Publicis for $1.3 billion. Kay received her masters from the University of Oxford (fully funded) and bachelors from Penn State (dean’s list).
For fun, Kay loves extreme sports, traveling (70+ countries), and all things Okinawa. Fun fact: Kay solo cycled the Silk Road once (5000 miles, 5 countries, 5 months).