Meet the Team

Our team's unwavering dedication, combined with their real-world experience in building and scaling successful startups, ensures that our clients receive practical, actionable advice tailored to their unique challenges and aspirations.

  • Founder and Managing Partner

    Toms professional background is deeply rooted in the startup ecosystem, specializing in business partnerships, raising funds, and go-to-market (GTM) initiatives. This position capitalizes on his extensive experience in fostering trust, authenticity, and open-mindedness within professional ecosystems which are crucial qualities for leading a business consultancy focused on both early stage & growth clients.

    Prior to his current role at Conatus Advisors, Tom was involved with Verizon Ventures where he was responsible for discovering new technology investments, managing existing portfolio relationships, and developing commercial contracts for portfolio companies. His tenure at Verizon Ventures highlights his capability in handling high-stakes investment decisions and nurturing strategic business relationships, skills that are invaluable to his current role at Conatus Advisors.

    Tom’s contributions to Conatus Advisors are centered around leveraging his expertise in investment management and strategic partnerships to enhance the firm's capabilities in supporting our clients through critical development phases, including funding and market entry. His leadership is instrumental in guiding the firm's strategic direction, ensuring that Conatus Advisors remains closely aligned with the needs of our clients.

    Additionally, Tom has experience as a Board Observer, contributing to the strategic oversight of companies like Fermata Energy and Pivotal Commware. His background also includes roles in business and product development, maintaining and developing customer relationships, strategic partnerships, and sales initiatives in the Media and Technology market at Verizon Enterprise Solutions. In addition, his extensive experience in business development and sales management from his time with Narus Inc, Cobalt Networks, and Xerox Corporation.

  • Managing Partner

    Jeff is the Managing Partner at Conatus Advisors, where he brings a wealth of experience and a proven global track record in the high-tech industry. With a career devoted to the accelerated growth and management of organizations, Jeff has been instrumental in financing rounds totaling multiple hundreds of millions of dollars for his companies and clients. His exceptional ability to enroll customers and partners in company direction during high growth periods has been a cornerstone of his success.

    Jeff's responsibilities at Conatus Advisors encompass strategy planning and development, capitalization strategy, capital raising, go-to-market initiatives, account segmentation, thought leadership, launch of new services, mergers & acquisitions, partner/alliance strategy development & execution, contract management & negotiations, as well as personal engagement & enrollment of partners & customers at the senior executive level.

    His extensive global experience covers a variety of geographies and cultures, with a specific focus on critical theaters including EMEA, Latin America, and across Asia. This international perspective has been invaluable in understanding and navigating the complexities of global business development.

    Before joining Conatus Advisors, Jeff served as the Founder & Managing Partner at Tre Figli Advisors, LLC, a management consulting firm dedicated to accelerating time to market for emerging technology companies through strategic engagement and capitalization. At HP, he was the Vice President of Business Development for the Personal Systems Group in the Americas, where he launched the HP Netbook with mobile operators across the Americas region and significantly grew revenue and gross margin contribution.

    Jeff's executive acumen is further demonstrated by his tenure at Catalyst Advisors, LLC, where he increased revenue by over 500% in one year and restructured the company engagement model. As Vice President of Corporate Development at Azul Systems, Inc., he was responsible for the initial creation of strategic relationships with both partners and customers and drove significant financing rounds.

    Throughout his career, Jeff has established and led global sales and business development efforts at companies such as Narus, Inc., and built the service provider business at Cobalt Networks, leading the company to its IPO and sale to Sun Microsystems for $2B.Jeff began his career in telecommunications and networking including his launch of the world’s first voice-over-ATM offering at Infonet Services Corp. prior to its IPO and acquisition by British Telecommunications.

    Jeff’s tireless commitment to his clients and his strategic insight make him an invaluable asset to Conatus Advisors and the clients they serve. His leadership and expertise continue to drive growth and success for the firm and its clients.

  • Strategic Advisor

    Shyam is a Strategic Advisor and an integral part of the Conatus Advisors team. He excels in aligning technological innovation with market needs, significantly accelerating product development cycles. His expertise in leveraging real-time data and analytics has enabled clients to swiftly adapt and respond to market demands, thereby reducing time to market. Shyam's strategic use of technology and data-driven insights has been crucial in refining product offerings to better meet both commercial & consumer expectations and capture market share efficiently.

    In addition to working with Conatus Advisors, Shyam Pillalamarri has a distinguished professional background with significant experience in the technology sector. He was involved with three successful startups as a founder or an early executive. He is a partner at Snow Hill Capital and before that was the Senior Vice President of Technology and Chief Technology Officer for Samsung SDS, a global ICT solutions and services provider with over $8 billion in revenues. At Samsung SDS, he led central R&D and incubation efforts to develop and deploy leading-edge Artificial Intelligence solutions across various Samsung businesses.

    Prior to his role at Samsung SDS, Shyam co- founded Azul Systems, where he served as the Vice President of Engineering working closely with Jeff Cesari. Azul Systems is known for providing highly scalable and elastic Java solutions for transaction-intensive applications in industries such as financial services, e-commerce, and high technology. The Java platform was deployed by many large e-commerce websites for its scale, throughput, consistent response times, and resiliency. Before co-founding Azul Systems, Shyam was the Vice President of Software Engineering for the IP Services business unit at Nortel Networks, which he joined through their acquisition of Shasta Networks. At Shasta Networks, he led the software development organization from inception to product delivery for the Shasta Broadband IP Services Platform, a carrier-grade fault-tolerant system for provisioning and billing custom IP services for DSL subscribers. Earlier in his career, Shyam held the position of Director of Software Engineering at ZeitNet (acquired by Cabletron), where he led the development of various ATM products targeted towards the enterprise market. He also held management and engineering positions at Hewlett-Packard, leading several networking, storage, and distributed systems development projects. Shyam is recognized as an industry speaker, a seed-stage angel investor, and a mentor to startups, having been granted 14 patents in high- performance computing and communications. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Science degree from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree from IIT Madras, India.

  • Chief of Staff

    Lucas is Chief of Staff at Conatus Advisors. With a dual degree in Economics and Business Administration from Chapman University, Lucas combines analytical expertise with strategic insight to deliver impactful results for clients.   Lucas’s strong foundation in data-driven decision-making is further supported by certifications in Applied Statistical Analysis, Artificial Intelligence for Business Strategy from MIT Executive Education, and Bloomberg Market Concepts.

    At Conatus Advisors, Lucas plays a pivotal role in enhancing operational efficiency and fostering client relationships. He has successfully integrated platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce CRM, and AI tools to streamline workflows, optimize outcomes, and drive productivity. His analytical capabilities have enabled him to evaluate business plans and recommend strategic improvements contributing to increased efficiencies across engagements.  Prior to joining Conatus Advisors, Lucas gained valuable experience interning at Tre Figli Advisors & HG Fenton, where he supported financial strategy development and market expansion initiatives. During his internships, he collaborated with senior leadership to streamline operations, conduct financial analysis, and drive client-focused solutions.