Make meaningful connections with leaders beyond your individual network.

The Upside brings together a diverse group of purpose-driven leaders—executives, investors, entrepreneurs, innovators, and creators—to build companies, accelerate careers, and support causes.

Make a meaningful economic and social impact

Boards

Receive introductions to board opportunities with public, private, & non-profit organizations.

Careers

Most executive opportunities are not advertised. Get introduced to executive search firms, VC/PE investors, and in-house executive recruiters.

Investments

Connect with entrepreneurs from early-stage, high-growth ventures, looking for capital from angel and venture capital investors.

Mentorship

Provide practical, day-to-day professional advice and coaching to peers, aspiring individuals, and startups.

Advisory

Through one-on-one meetings and office hours, share your insight, experience, and advice.

Causes

Get others involved in your existing work around a cause or get involved in causes important to you.

How it works

1. Create Private Profile

Describe your expertise, background, and interests. You can complete a questionnaire online or speak live with one of our specialists.

2. Review Matches

See a detailed profile of other members with complementary goals or interests. Accept, decline, or request more information about your match.

3. Meet Member

Get introduced to your match. The Upside can schedule the meeting after you both agree to connect—via phone, video, or in person.

Member Resources

Platform Tools

Research and explore opportunities, review matches, schedule meetings, and privately interact with the community.

Exclusive Programming

Exclusive programming from inspired thinkers that challenges you to reflect, re-energize and refocus.

Concierge Support

Get concierge support from a real person who can assist you in navigating The Upside and uncovering opportunities.

Featured Professional Members

For over 20 years, Michael Schreck has built and led pioneering companies whose innovative technologies enable the world’s leading brands to better engage with their customers. Prior to his CEO role at Cloudvirga, Michael served as the Managing Director of Altisource Labs, an innovation center within mortgage software provider Altisource Portfolio Solutions. In that role, he was responsible for overseeing more than 1,000 employees across four next-generation software and analytics companies, including leading software-as-a-service providers Equator and Mortgage Builder.

Michael previously held CEO positions at digital publishing firm Zmags and government service provider Corrective Solutions. He also co-founded General Catalyst Partners, a multi-billion-dollar venture capital firm where Michael helped develop successful startups including Upromise, SmartBargains, m-Qube and CoreMetrics. Collectively, these companies were acquired for over $1 billion by SLM, GSI Commerce, VeriSign and IBM, respectively.

Michael started his career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company and Monitor Company. He holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University.

Michael Schreck

CEO, Investor, Board Member, Advisor

Amy Knapp has over twenty years of experience in recruiting and people operations. Currently, she is VP of People at Catalant Technologies where she leads recruiting and HR. More recently she led talent for the venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures where she partnered with portfolio companies on their talent and people programs and strategies.

Prior to joining Redpoint, Amy spent the first 10 years of her career in human resources roles in various manufacturing and medical-device companies before moving to Google as a recruiter in 2007. After Google, she joined Ning as its first recruiter and moved into a recruiting and human resources leadership role. More recently, she led talent acquisition for Chegg during its IPO.

Amy was the co-creator of OpenRec, an annual talent leadership conference held from 2016-2019 centered around thought leadership and knowledge sharing in the startup talent community. She is currently on the board of Operation Troop Support, a non-profit supporting deployed military troops and their families, and she is active as a Cub Scout leader.

Amy is a die-hard Boston Bruins fan, a foster-adoptive parent, and an avid road tripper, having visited all 50 states.

Amy Knapp

VP People at Catalant Technologies

Sean is the COO of Algorand, responsible for go-to-market execution and operations including product management, engineering, marketing and global community development.

Sean joined Algorand from LogMeIn where he was the Chief Marketing Officer responsible for global marketing strategy, product marketing, ecommerce, communications, brand leadership, and demand generation. He also ran the Integration Management Office for LogMeIn's acquisition of Jive Communications in early 2018. An experienced operations and go-to-market executive, Sean worked at Avid Technology where he led worldwide marketing strategy and operations as a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Sean has also held several executive leadership roles including CMO and COO of Zmags, CMO of Syncsort, and as vice-president of Global Business Unit (GBU) marketing at Oracle reporting to the CMO where he was responsible for Oracle’s vertical industry applications worldwide.

At the start of his professional career Sean spent seven years as a senior strategy consultant with Monitor Group, and in 1999 he co-founded Upromise, Inc. where he was vice-president of product management and product marketing.

Sean earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Williams College and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University Graduate School of Business.

W. Sean Ford

Chief Operating Officer, Board Member