Living Proud & Out: Careers in Tech & Business for LGBTQ

Alisha Guffey

Alisha Guffey has a passion for work at the nexus of technology, communications, public relations, business development, and policy. In February 2020, she began working at Palantir as a Technical Product Manager on their USG Team doing exactly what she loves, working at the nexus of solving problems. She began her work at Palantir through eSimplicity, a partner-firm of Palantir. eSimplicity is a technology start-up focused on bringing emerging technology solutions to the US Government. Alisha is a Direct of Product at eSimplicity since February of 2020. Previously, she was a business consultant at the Office Secretary of Defense – Office of the Comptroller and Chief Management Office, where she worked on critical initiatives such as the Secretary’s Defense Wide Review Board. Alisha is a 17-year veteran of the US Army Reserves. She currently Commands Alpha Company of the 98^th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, in Denver, Colorado. She is a former fellow with the US State Department in the Secretary's Office of Global Partnerships and the Office of Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

In May 2016, Alisha completed her Master of International Business Degree at The Fletcher School at Tufts University in Massachusetts. During her tenure at Fletcher, Alisha pursued her passion for creativity through a mentorship with the Writers Guild of America and ultimately started her own production company called Combat Camera Productions, which aims to help share the real stories and personal narratives of post-conflict. Alisha is also the creator of the Ask and Tell Project aimed at telling the hidden stories of LGBTQ Veterans and Service Members in the light of the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. If there's a problem to solve, she’s in. Alisha thrives in creative environments and truly enjoys connecting people and creating teams to tackle any obstacle in today's global context.

Steven Koltai

Steven Koltai is Research Affiliate at MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship at MIT D-Lab, Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and Managing Director of Koltai & Co, an entrepreneurship development consultancy that has worked in over 3 dozen countries, and for the past 4 years exclusively in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, Koltai was Lead Mentor World Bank XL Africa (World Bank President’s Award 2017). From 2009-2012, Koltai was the first State Department Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship (under Secretary Hillary Clinton) where he created and ran the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP). Prior to 2009, Koltai had a 40 year business career including stints at Bankers Trust Company and Salomon Bros (both in the international project finance groups), McKinsey & Company (in the media group), and 10 years as Corporate Senior Vice President for Strategy and Business Development at Warner Bros. Koltai has also been a repeat entrepreneur, whose own start-ups included serving as co-founder of $16 billion market cap Luxembourg-based SES television satellite company.

Among his non-profit activities, Koltai is a member of the Lincolnville Maine Broadband Committee, Board Chair of Skilllab (an Amsterdam-based developer of skills assessment apps for refuges, migrants and other job seekers), General Partner and Entrepreneur in Residence of Atlantica Ventures (a Series A-B venture investor in African tech startups), and a member of the Board of the Camden (ME) International Film Festival.

Koltai earned a BA in History, magna cum laude Tufts University, MA Tufts’ Fletcher School. Licence in European Economics (as Fulbright Scholar) from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Koltai was an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (where he has been a member for over 30 years) Koltai was a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow in 2018.

Koltai lives with his husband, Ivan Zizek, in Lincolnville, ME and has two adult sons and one grandson.

Zaid Zaid

Zaid A. Zaid is on the Strategic Response Policy team at Facebook. Zaid has nearly 20 years of experience in tech, policy, law, diplomacy, foreign affairs, national security, and international development. He joined Facebook after serving in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel. In this role, he advised the President and his Administration on congressional investigations, crisis response, international development, energy, and environmental matters, like the Flint Water Crisis. He represented the White House in negotiations with Congress, and represented a witness before the Congressional Select Committee on Benghazi. Prior to the White House, Zaid was the Senior Attorney Advisor to the General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Before joining the Obama Administration, he was a senior associate in the investigations and criminal litigation group at Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr (WilmerHale) in Washington, D.C. where he worked on internal investigations. He also represented a Guantanamo Detainee in federal court, and advised the Egyptian-American Rule of Law Association on a number of issues following the ousting of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Zaid joined WilmerHale after clerkships on the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the First and Second Circuits and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Zaid graduated from Columbia Law School in 2007 as a Richard Paul Richman Fellow, where he was on the Editorial Board of the Columbia Law Review. Prior to law school, he was a political officer in the Foreign Service. He served in Baghdad, Iraq as the liaison between the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council and at U.S. Embassy Baghdad. He also served in New York at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, as Special Assistant to the Ambassador and as the U.S. Coordinator for the United Nations General Assembly; as Special Assistant to the Ambassador at U.S. Embassy Cairo; and he studied Arabic at the Foreign Service Institute in Tunis.

Zaid graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1999 and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1997, where he was a Pickering Fellow. Zaid lives in Washington, D.C., with his husband Giles P. Herman and their three sons.