TEAM

Co-Founders and Managing Members

Jim Cohen

Jim is an experienced public company officer and director with a background in investment banking, corporate law, private equity and M&A/strategy. Jim’s career has been focused on making investments in growing businesses.

  • Lecturer, Princeton University Graduate School Seminar Series on Venture Capital; Recipient of The Clio Award in 2022 from the Princeton Graduate School in recognition of the value of this class to Princeton grad students

  • Adjunct Professor/Lecturer, Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business

  • Head of M&A/Corp Dev at NYSE public company

  • Founding Partner and member of Investment Committee of private equity firm, Main Street Capital (NYSE: MAIN)

  • Attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (NYC, London) and Baker Botts (Houston)

  • Financial Analyst at Morgan Stanley (NYC)

  • A.B., cum laude Princeton University 1986; Honor Committee; Class President

  • JD, NYU School of Law

  • Mentor to Techstars NYC, the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, the Rice Alliance, and the Rice Lilie Lab; member of Princeton’s Keller Center eLab Advisory Committee, the Princeton Dean for Research’s Advisory Council, and the inaugural Investment Advisory Committee for the Rice University One Small Step grant program.

  • Reach Jim directly at jim@fitzgate.com

Mark Poag ‘93

Mark Poag

As a successful software entrepreneur that helped lead a company from start-up, through rapid growth, market dominance and ultimate strategic sale, Mark has first-hand experience of what it takes to start, grow and sell a successful business.

  • Lecturer, Princeton University Graduate School Seminar Series on Venture Capital; Recipient of The Clio Award in 2022 from the Princeton Graduate School in recognition of the value of this class to Princeton grad students

  • Adjunct Professor/Lecturer, Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business

  • Head of Product, Marketing, Legal and Alliances and Board member at Datacert, Inc., an enterprise software company (sold 2014)

  • Founder and CEO of Digicontract, Inc., a SaaS company (sold 2001)

  • A.B., Princeton University 1993; Class President

  • MBA, Tulane University

  • JD, Tulane School of Law

  • Mentor to Techstars NYC, the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, the Rice Alliance, the Rice Lilie Lab, and the northeast National Science Foundation I-Corps Hub program; member of Princeton’s Keller Center eLab Advisory Committee, the Princeton Dean for Research’s Advisory Council, and the inaugural Investment Advisory Committee for the Rice University One Small Step grant program.

  • Reach Mark directly at mark@fitzgate.com

Current Interns

JUSTIN CHANG

Justin Chang is a second year MBA student at Rice University. He has worked in performance analysis with the University of Southern California’s volleyball programs (men’s, women’s, beach) and consulted with USA Volleyball including at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. His primary interests are in education, sports, and non-profits. Justin holds a MPP from the University of Southern California and a BBA from Baylor University.

EMMY SONG

Emmy is an undergraduate student at Princeton University pursuing a BA in Computer Science. She is excited by entrepreneurship and technology, currently directing HackPrinceton, Princeton’s premier collegiate hackathon, and interning as a Product Manager at Werner Enterprises.

Past Interns

Zach Dobin

Zach Dobin spent eight years in commercial real estate as a broker with Cushman & Wakefield | San Antonio Commercial Advisors before starting the full-time MBA program at Rice University. While at Rice, Zach explored his interest in entrepreneurship by interning with Fitz Gate Ventures to better understand venture investing and the startup ecosystem. After graduating from the MBA program, Zach joined Triten Real Estate Partners as an Associate Principal to help scale Triten’s acquisitions effort in new markets.

Akash Majumdar

Akash Majumdar (Rice MBA '20, Vanderbilt BA '18) is a Project and Content Specialist at Ingenero. He specializes in marketing and digital content management, and has experience in both startup and corporate setups across various domains. He continues to be involved in the entrepreneurship community in Houston, having been affiliated with Rice Alliance, OwlSpark, and Station Houston in the past.

Pelu Adejugba

Pelu is a second year MBA at Rice University and an intern on Tesla's Capital Equipment purchasing team. Prior to business school, Pelu worked as an engineer in the oil and gas industry and in construction. He graduated from University of Houston with a MS in Subsea - Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Civil Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.

Daniel Luo

Daniel Luo is a Houston native who has been with Fitz Gate since Fall 2018. He previously attended the University of Virginia ‘18 and is currently a first year at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University ‘22.

Jason Vanderbosch

Jason is currently a second year MBA at Rice University. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and has over a decade of technology experience.  After helping build out a small business's IT organization, Jason joined NRG Energy as a Systems Engineer on the infrastructure IT team.  Jason has taken on a variety of roles within NRG including project manager of several M&A IT integrations.