Leadership

John currently serves as chairman of the board of Locus Robotics and, as a founding investor, has served continuously on the board since the company’s formation in 2015. John is the CEO of BHC Advisors, LLC a privately held investment firm. Previously, John was a co-founder of Great Hill Partners, a leading private equity firm, and served as a managing partner from the firm’s inception in 1998 through 2017, and as a senior advisor from 2017 to 2022. During his tenure as a managing partner, he was responsible for transaction origination, investment policy, fundraising, investor relations and the general management of the firm and served as co-chair of the firm’s executive and investment committees. Over the course of his investing career, John has led investments in a wide range of industry sectors including data centers, cloud services, software, telecommunications, logistics, business services and media; and has served on over 25 boards for businesses ranging from early stage to publicly traded companies. In addition, John has served on the board of directors of a number of nonprofit organizations supporting various causes in the Boston area.

John began his investment career in 1989 when he joined M/C Partners as a senior associate upon graduation from business school. Prior to business school, he spent two years at Bank of Boston, completing the bank’s training program and serving as a loan officer in the bank’s media & communications group. John earned a degree in economics from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Rory has been investing in enterprise software for the past 25 years. An active investor in the rise of SaaS and the wider transition of enterprise computing to the cloud, Rory led investments in Bill.com (BILL), Box (BOX), DocuSign (DOCU), ExactTarget (ET; Acq: SFDC), Omniture (OMTR; Acq: ADBE) and Placeware (Acq: MSFT) among others. Currently, Rory is focused on investing in business applications powered by AI (cogntive applications), frontier tech and the continuing adoption of SaaS and cloud. He currently sits on the board of directors at Bill.com (BILL), Chef Software, Cognata, DroneDeploy, Forter, Locus Robotics, OM1, OneLogin, Pantheon, Papaya Global, Socure, Soft Robotics, Solvvy, and WalkMe. Rory has been recognized by the Forbes Midas List and AlwaysOn Power Players in Venture Capital for his investments. He holds a BSc from the London School of Economics.

Chris Gaffney is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Great Hill Partners, a growth-oriented private equity firm with $8 billion of cumulative funds raised. He is responsible for transaction origination, investment policy, fundraising, investor relations and the general management of the firm. His investment experience covers a broad group of industries, including logistics, software, information services, eCommerce, consumer and online services, financial services, insurance, digital publishing, telecommunications, education, and media. Gaffney has served on over 50 boards from early stage to publicly traded businesses with multiple investments grown from seed stage to unicorn status. Gaffney earned a degree in accounting and economics summa cum laude from Boston College, lives in Boston and also serves on the Board of Special Olympics and Lesley University.

Rick leads the executive team with over 30 years of experience in executive management, sales, and marketing for some of the world’s most successful technology companies, such as Cisco, Intronis, j2 Global, WebEx, Intranets.com, Barracuda Networks, Lotus Development, Mzinga, and PictureTel. Rick leads the executive team and is responsible for the overall strategy and execution at Locus Robotics. Rick currently sits on various boards and is an advisor to multiple companies, including Retrocausal, Arccos, Cybernetix Ventures, and Leading Edge Ventures. Past board positions include Yodle, Virtual Computer, Bidding for Good, Skill Survey, Influitive, Ntirety, Blue Raven, and Centive.

Mike’s 30 years of technical and business leadership experience inform everything from the design of our robots to tackling the practical challenges of a rapidly scaling organization. Nimbly navigating EBITDA, ROI, UPH, CPU, UPO, SLA, FIFO, XML, SQL, C++, and AWS, to name a few, Mike is a logistics industry veteran and expert who intrinsically understands the operational challenges of our customers. He has been instrumental in establishing Locus Robotics as a leader in the Logistics and AMR space, exemplifying our focus on technology in service to the real-world needs of warehouse operators around the globe.

Zach Barasz has eleven years of investing experience and focuses on the intersection of technology and sustainability in transportation, manufacturing, supply chains, and the consumer economy. Zach sits on the board of Locus Robotics, MakerSights and Sheertex, and also led our investment in Motive. Prior to G2, Zach was a Partner at BMW i Ventures, where he led investments in sustainable technology companies impacting the mobility and manufacturing sectors, including Xometry (NASDAQ: XMTR), CelLink, Proterra (NASDAQ: PTRA), Lime, and Bright Machines.

This is not Zach’s first time working with the G2 Venture Partners team: he previously spent three years at Kleiner Perkins’ Green Growth Fund. Prior to that, he was an Associate at Altamont Capital Partners, a Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, and worked in strategy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a leading international environmental conservation organization.

Zach holds a B.S. degree in Economics and a B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from Stanford.

Ben is a Vice President on the Growth Equity team within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Goldman Sachs Asset Management is the primary investing area within Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), and the Growth Equity business has invested over $13 billion in growth stage technology-driven companies. Ben is focused on Application Software and has helped lead several investments for the team. Prior to his time at Goldman Sachs, Ben spent time as an investor at SuRo Capital and as an investment banker at Credit Suisse. Ben earned a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, where he was also captain of the tennis team.