Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez is a Partner, Vice President, Business Development of z9 Capital. Mr. Rodriguez is a retired Major League Baseball (MLB) player who played at the competitive professional level for more than 24 years and who statistically is considered the greatest defensive catcher in MLB history. On the field, Mr. Rodriguez was the recipient of numerous achievements and awards, including, MLB’s all-time games leader as catcher, 7 time silver slugger winner, 2003 World Series champion (Florida Marlins), 2003 NLCS MVP, 1999 AL MVP, 14 time All-Star, Texas Sports Hall of Fame, Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and Latino Hall of Fame. After Mr. Rodriguez’s retirement from baseball, his love for the game endured and to this day he continues to be involved in the sport through his involvement as the Special Assistant to the General Manager of the Texas Rangers, coaching of various major and minor league ballplayers as well as his work as a sports analyst for Fox Sports South West. Off the field, Mr. Rodriguez has and continues to be a well-versed businessman taking on a wide range of investments both domestically and abroad. Pudge also enjoys donating and giving his time to many different communities and non-profit organizations because giving back is a virtue he holds close.

Mr. Flynn spent 27 years with SBC Communications (currently AT&T). The last 13 years of his tenure, he managed P&L units with Cingular Wireless and was President of SBC-Switzerland. Mr. Flynn was Vice President of National Distribution and later Vice President and General Manager of the Northeast Region for Cingular Wireless Philadelphia. After taking early retirement in 2005, Mr. Flynn spent 1 year as Senior Vice President of Sales for Vonage and 5 years as Executive Vice President-Strategic Alliances for Saveology.com. Mr. Flynn is currently President of Flynn Enterprises, a telecommunications consulting group.

Mr. Gray discovered the path to e-publishing while still a law student in Chicago. Frustrated by the unwieldy and dense subject matter — and the voluminous amount of paper materials he had to sift through — he founded The Numina Group Corporation in 1990 to produce the first software study aides for law students, Casebriefs. In 1996, Casebriefs was sold to the legal publishing division of Thomson Reuters.

Through this experience, Mr. Gray gained deep insight into the educational publishing industry. In 1997 and with a good reputation among the publishing industry, Gray then established WizeUp.com to convert the $6.5 billion college textbook market from printed products to entirely digital content with sales and delivery via the web. WizeUp.com became the world’s largest developer and distributor of electronic college textbooks. WizeUp.com was eventually sold to a strategic publishing company in 2005.In 2006, and as the web was moving more toward an advertising and sponsorship model, Gray had the opportunity to repurchase his original company, Casebriefs, back from Thomson Reuters which he quickly did. Gray entirely converted the B to C business model to a B to B model, and Casebriefs became a free site and app opportunity completely supported by advertiser and sponsorship revenues. Today, Casebriefs.com is the most widely used site for US legal education worldwide. Sponsors and advertisers include more than 65 legal education institutions, the nation’s largest test prep companies, industry technology companies, and large content database companies such as Bloomberg.Gray has been an Adjunct Professor and is currently an Executive Education Professor, and an Entrepreneur in Residence in the Graduate School of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Gray is a panelist and speaker at numerous industry conferences.