Meet The 2021 GENIUS NY Judges

This years GENIUS NY Pitch Finals premieres on October 26 at noon. Watch our 5 finalists pitch their innovative startups to a panel of judges and see who is awarded $1 million.

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Meet the judges

Houston Mills, VP of Flight Operations and Safety at UPS
Houston is the VP of UAS Operations at UPS. Prior to this position, Mills served as Global Aviation Strategy & Public Policy Director, where he advocated for federal and international aviation policy on behalf of UPS and the aviation industry. He also served as UPS’s Director of Airline Safety and Compliance, where he was responsible for ensuring safe flight operations throughout the world.
Within six years at UPS, he was promoted to management, serving in positions of increasing responsibility in human resources, flight training, flight standards and flight operations.
In 2016, Mills was appointed by the Secretary of Transportation to serve on the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) Drone Advisory Committee and is also one of only 35 executives in the country to serve on the committee tasked with advising the FAA Administrator on what new polices should look like in integrating unmanned systems in the national airspace.

Theresa Mazzullo, CEO of Excell Partners
Theresa Mazzullo has been CEO of Excell Partners since 2006. She has a 30-year track record in business, finance and entrepreneurship. Having owned and sold a small business, she brings firsthand knowledge, unique skills, and proven experience to the seed stage investment arena. In her role as CEO, her duties include governance, compliance, reporting, community integration, finance and fundraising.
In addition to her CEO position at Excell, Theresa co-founded Impact Capital NY, LLC. a privately-held VC Fund in upstate NY. Her fundraising ability has resulted in bringing over $60 million into the upstate ecosystem for investments in high tech startups.

Clayton Besch, Director of ESD’s New York Ventures
Clayton is the Director of ESD’s New York Ventures which works to bolster the critical capital needs of New York State's innovation economy by providing seed and early-stage venture funding to high growth startups as they move from concept to commercialization, through early growth and expansion.
Raised in the Capital Region, Clayton did his undergraduate at Hamilton College in Central NY followed by advanced education in Asia, earning a master’s at Nagasaki University and a PhD at Tokyo University.  After working with SOFTBANK Capital's worldwide VC network for several years he returned to the Capital Region and joined New York State’s VC community.

Chedy Hampson, Founder and CEO of TCGplayer
Chedy Hampson is the founder and CEO of TCGplayer, the leading online marketplace for the collectibles world. For more than three decades, Chedy has been pioneering the disruption of the industry, building TCGplayer from a two-person web design firm serving trading card enthusiasts into a technology platform that today connects thousands of hobby and collectibles businesses with customers around the globe.
Chedy credits TCGplayer’s rapid growth to its award-winning culture and commitment to its five core values. His leadership style embraces the Company’s ‘Community for All’ core value, and he has been instrumental in creating a pervasive culture of acceptance and open-mindedness across the organization.
Under Chedy’s leadership, TCGplayer has grown to more than 500 employees and been ranked amongst New York State’s 50 best employers and Fortune.com’s top 100 companies for women in the U.S.

Kelly Wypych, CEO at Cryomech
Kelly is a leader, strategist, and problem solver with over 25 years of experience innovating technology products for industries including ultra-low temperature research, aerospace, manufacturing and air traffic management.
Her roots are in technology and engineering and her experience includes diverse roles within fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and small start-ups.  Kelly has led projects in dozens of countries and has a passion for managing change and helping people in transition.