Christoph Sonnen

Co-Founder & CEO at leAD, Partner at ADvantage

With a passion for sports and lifestyle and a knack for business, Christoph looks back at over twenty years of founding, managing and structuring businesses. He is a venture capital expert with a passion for great business ideas, startups, and early-stage investment. Christoph is also a Partner at the ADvantage Sports Tech Fund.

Anne Joachim

Finance Director

Anne joined leAD with a strong background in the startup and VC world. After starting her career in banking, she worked for an eCommerce shop and became part of the startup world very fast. Taking the chance to be part of the most disruptive part of the economy fascinated her. She invested in several FinTech and HealthTech companies and was responsible for all financial processes within a Munich-based VC. She took the opportunity to join leAD as Finance Director to combine her experiences in finance and investing with her passion for sports. Anne loves to support entrepreneurs especially when it comes to questions in finance or fundraising as well as keeping all things in place for leAD.

Thomas H. Rudy

Chief Investment Officer & Lake Nona Fund Principal

Thomas is Chief Investment Officer of the leAD Investment Ecosystem and concurrently holds titles as Managing Partner of Cerro Capital, and Principal of the Lake Nona Fund. Prior to joining full-time, Thomas had been a mentor to leAD since 2017. He is the Co-Founder of WhiteRock, a sports and entertainment M&A advisory firm. Since 2019, he was voted one of the top 25 experts in SportsTech in the North American SportsTech Report annually. Furthermore, he is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of New York-based venture capital fund Elevate Innovation Partners. Rudy’s career in sports investment banking started at Citigroup assisting owners in buying and selling professional teams. He graduated from the College at Columbia University in New York City in 2006 with a B.A. in Economics.

Kendel Fiorentino

Chief Operating Officer

Bringing a diverse marketing background to leAD including 15 years of agency, consulting, sports property, and international brand marketing experience, Kendel joins the team from adidas International, where she was Director of Brand Communications for the Reebok brand in Europe. She has developed and executed successful brand growth strategies, go-to-market approaches, product launches, tactical sales initiatives, partnerships, and both brand building and revenue generating programs. leAD presents the greatest opportunity to combine her career mission of bringing vision and big ideas to life for game changing organizations with her personal mission of maximizing human potential through sports, health & wellness technology.

Aaron Naisar

Chief of Staff

Aaron is an experienced early-stage investor. He has negotiated and executed more than 15 investments, ranging from pre-seed to Series A in the realm of sports tech. He holds a master’s degree with distinctions in Strategic Entrepreneurship from Rotterdam School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Mannheim. Aaron is a sports fanatic and has a tennis coaching license.

Alexander Bente

leAD Co-Founder & ADvantage Sports Tech Fund Principal

Alex graduated from the University of St. Gallen, one of the leading business schools in Europe, where he received his Master’s degree in Accounting and Finance. He’s involved in several family initiatives to preserve the legacy of his great-grandfather. Alex is also Principal at the ADvantage Sports Tech Fund.

Nathalie Sonne

Program and Marketing Director

After a brief trip into the agency world, Nathalie soon immersed herself in the founders’ scene to live her passion for fast-paced environments and strategy in unfamiliar terrain by working for startups both in the U.S. and Germany. As Program and Marketing Director at leAD, she gets to combine her personal interest in sports with this diverse experience and leverage it – to help promising early sports startups to grow and succeed.

Mina Begum

Head Scout

Mina has 4+ years of experience in accelerators and sourcing market-leading technologies for brands like Google, Arsenal Football Club, and British Airways. She has worked on 28 different innovation programs resulting in startups piloting their solutions in a live environment, continued by securing investment and commercial agreements.

Matthew Foran

Program Manager

Matthew comes from a healthcare background and holds a Master’s degree in Sports and Exercise Medicine from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. He has experienced the Berlin startup scene first-hand as a founder, having gone through an accelerator program with a previous venture. As well as understanding the benefits of health tech in today’s world, he is also passionate about sports, both as a player and a spectator. These attributes help him in identifying potential promising startups, as well as accompanying them through each stage of our accelerator program.

Justin Driscoll

Portfolio Team

Prior to leAD, Justin has worked in the entrepreneurial world for a baseball startup, in the corporate world at a Fortune 500 company, and in the venture world at an Orlando-based VC fund. Justin brings 3 years of experience in strategy and finance. Justin currently holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Rollins College and is working towards completing his Master's in Business Administration. Justin is a collegiate baseball player and sports lover at heart.