The People Behind the People at the Founders Circle Family
Take a sneak peek behind the people who “invest in people.”
Ryan Morrison
Meet Ryan Morrison – Partner and Outdoor Adventure-seeker Here at Founders Circle Capital.
When he’s not bending an ear and offering support to startup CEOs and CFOs, odds are Ryan is in the middle of or planning his next outdoor adventure. As a former competitive skier and lacrosse player, staying active is a big part of Ryan’s lifestyle.
Ryan ran his first marathon in Honolulu last year and is making it an annual tradition. He uses it as an excuse to travel and will run his third one at midnight in Norway. He also completed a century-mile bike ride in Napa Valley, which he did, on a whim, with a bike he found on Craigslist. He hopes to continue improving as a runner and cyclist and complete one of the World Marathon Majors one day. Of course, he’ll always be a skier at heart, so he takes ever winter off endurance sports to tackle some of the steepest runs at mountains across the US, like Corbet’s Couloir at Jackson Hole or the Palisades Chutes up in Tahoe.
If he’s not jetting off for an outdoor adventure, Ryan can be found reading, roller-blading, or strolling around the parks of San Francisco with his best *furry* friend, Appa.
Venture investing is an endurance sport in its own right, and we certainly appreciate Ryan’s patience, diligence and hard work when it comes to supporting Founders Circle Capital and our portfolio companies. Keep at it, Ryan and we’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines of your next marathon!
Marilu Livermore
Meet Marilu Livermore – Brand Architect and Steward here at Founder’s Circle Capital.
To say Marilu is passionate about food is an understatement – it’s right at the core of who she is as a human being. Whether cooking or consuming it, food has become the periscope through which Marilu has explored the world and her own identity. To her, food raises cultural, social, and environmental awareness and, most importantly, creates community.
Marilu’s love of food began with her Cuban roots. The Cuban cuisine she ate as a child combined the flavors of many ethnic cultures, including African, Spanish, and East Asian. Then she discovered Anthony Bourdain, and like many, she became enthralled with his philosophy that food is the gateway to understanding people and cultures.
With two kids to keep an eye on, travel has slowed for Marilu and her husband. However, she has managed to keep her passion for food and travel alive through either restaurants in the bay area, or her hometown of Miami, or by hosting dinner parties. Whenever she gets a chance, Marilu loves attempting new dishes and cuisines or cooking with friends from a different culture.
Marilu still has quite a few bucket list destinations to travel to, but for now, she’s focused on passing on her love and appreciation of food to her children. And of course, she’s always cooking up incredible content and programming for us here at Founders Circle Capital.
Amy Aina
Meet Amy Aina – our intrepid Senior Executive Administrator here at Founders Circle Capital.
Amy has always loved playing competitive sports. In college, she played Division I basketball, and later joined a women’s semi-professional football team. However, when her life and priorities changed with the birth of her two kids and a move to the Bay Area in 2012, she felt she needed to find a new way to scratch her competitive itch.
She decided to become a certified fitness instructor and teach cycling, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and strength training classes.
Amy herself experienced the benefits of formal fitness instruction while taking cycling classes with a former professional cyclist for five years. The mentorship she received during that time is ultimately what inspired her to become a fitness instructor and develop her own brand of personal fitness.
Today, Amy regularly teaches multiple fitness classes, often as large as 30 people. Her next big goal is to get her two kids – both exceptional athletes in their own right – to take time out of their busy athletic schedules to join one of her classes!
Kudos to Amy for keeping her athletic spirit alive, and like she does here at Founders Circle, helping people achieve their goals and stay accountable to themselves.
Rebecca was born to be a sailor. She just didn’t know it, until a fortunate stroke of serendipity in 2015 when she and her husband were vacationing in Turkey. Unable to decide which beach to visit, they chartered a boat and a captain for the full week to tour the coast. Before the week was out, Rebecca knew that the helm of a sailing vessel would become her second home.
Soon after that trip, Rebecca started taking classes in Santa Cruz and eventually acquired her boat charter license.This has allowed her to charter sail boats up to a certain size anywhere in the world. She has sailed short routes – like the one between Catalina Island and Los Angeles – as well as week-long charters to various places in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. Rebecca’s favorite destination so far has been the coastlines of Sardinia and Corsica.
Her sailing ambitions haven’t stopped there. In 2018, Rebecca joined the St. Francis Yacht Club with a growing interest in competitive racing. She’s got about a dozen days of racing under her belt so far.
Rebecca’s passion for sailing comes as no surprise to us, given her role as a leader and mentor here at Founders Circle. She’s always great at helping us and our portfolio companies navigate through turbulent waters. Now we just need to convince her to bring us all with her on her next sailing adventure!
If you’ve ever lived in or visited San Francisco, you might’ve seen one or two brave souls swimming in the open waters of the San Francisco Bay and thought, “Who on Earth does that?” Andrew Boston does!
Andrew took us all by surprise when he told us he’d been open water swimming in the San Francisco Bay almost three times a week since 2014. Even more amazingly, he abides by the “unwritten code” of the Bay swimmers and doesn’t wear a wetsuit. (For context: the average sea temperature in the Bay is around 53 degrees Fahrenheit in the cold months and only gets as high as 60 degrees at its warmest.)
Andrew was a competitive rower back at Harvard and got introduced to swimming in the Bay by his wife when living in Russian Hill. Before long, Andrew was hooked, and he and a small group would go out every Wednesday, Friday, and once on the weekend. The pandemic put a hold on his swimming for a while, but now he’s looking forward to getting back into it more regularly. He even hopes to compete in a Polar Bear Challenge one day.
We love Andrew’s passion and commitment to his unconventional hobby. It perfectly embodies the Founders Circle ethos: carve your own path, even if it means breaking through some ice.
As a child, lacrosse was front and center in Owen’s life and a part of his DNA. His father and uncle were national champions on the same college team, and both became college coaches. His mother was also an All-American lacrosse player (and known to be the best athlete in the family). They inspired Owen to pursue the sport himself, so much so that he attended the University of Virginia to join the team where his dad was the coach and where they ended up winning a championship together.
Lacrosse was such a passion and focal point in his life that he redshirted as a freshman to have eligibility to play with the team for a fifth year, and tacked on an additional four years working with Harlem Lacrosse.
At Harlem Lacrosse, his team became a high school powerhouse in New York City and won two City Championships. The four years that Owen spent coaching went well beyond lacrosse. He described the program as a balance of about 10% lacrosse and 90% helping middle and high school children in underfunded public schools to become scholars and leaders in their community. A day in the life would include tutoring, study halls, SAT prep, college admissions support, and career planning.
As Owen made his move to San Francisco, his passion for lacrosse and community building remained – he now works with a local youth program. His legacy continues at Harlem Lacrosse, with his sister Elise running the program. If you see any girls with lacrosse sticks at 125th and Lenox Ave in New York City, chances are Elise introduced them to the sport.
The Founders Circle family is fortunate to benefit from Owen’s passion and spirit.
Audrey started playing with fabric around 1995. She took an art quilt class with Therese May and made a small pictorial wall quilt. Then she purchased The Joy of Quilting by Hansen & Hickey and made her first traditional quilt – for her best friend from business school expecting her first baby.
From there, Audrey just kept making quilts. Exploring different patterns – sometimes traditional and sometimes free cut – and different fabric styles – from 19th-century reproductions to tropical batiks – whatever satisfied her creative mood. Sometimes she makes a quilt with a particular person in mind, and other times it is made just for the fun of creating. A friend may come over and fall in love with one, so it goes home with them.
Long ago, she used to do etchings and paintings, but those creative processes are not forgiving to inattention – ink and paint dry to ruin your work and bushes while you step away to help with homework or to respond to a GPs late-night email. For Audrey, playing with fabric is the perfect creative outlet.
Charles has been playing the violin for over two decades – can you believe it?! He started in grade school and has played in orchestras, symphonies, and chamber groups.
In high school, Charles’ teacher mistakenly listed him under viola, which is another string instrument with a lower and deeper sound. Charles rolled with the punches because when presented with this challenge, he learned a new clef, prepared a solo on the viola, and prepared to sight-read a piece in alto clef – in ONLY three weeks!
He was determined, which ultimately led him to get one of the 12 slots for viola out of the 100 who auditioned! A true story of perseverance and hard work.
As Charles got older, he found himself teaching middle school math in his hometown of Memphis through Teach for America. He used his violinist background to teach about fractions, counting, speed, and time!
Charles is not only a valuable team member but a wonderful musical artist. If you ever have the pleasure of catching him with his violin, be sure to ask him to play one of his favorite pieces – Brahms’ Piano Trio in B Flat Major.
